
Class 6X^33. 



PRESENTED BY 



SEKMONS AND ESSAYS 



BY 



FRANCIS T. WASHBURN. 



EXTRACTS FROM A MEMORIAL PAMPHLET. 



BOSTON: 

GEORGE H. ELLIS, PRINTER. 
1876. 



3^ 35 

'.^3^* 






NOTE 



It is endeavored in this volume to preserve some 
memorials of one who died before he had become 
widely known, but who lived long enough to grow very 
dear to some. These pages, gathered by the hand of 
his wife, may help such as loved him to recall the ut- 
terances of a singularly gentle, faithful and wise spirit, 
wholly dedicated to the truth. They will bear testi- 
mony, also, to the impression which he made upon 
some kindred minds that knew him well. 

His friends will, perhaps, be helped by the photo- 
graph, however imperfectly, to bring to mind again that 
face, so full of grace and truth — the face of a saint 
and a scholar, — which was always, in itself, a beautiful 
sermon. 

It was intended to say something further in this place 
of the qualities of Mr. Washburn's mind and charac- 
ter which have made it seem well to preserve this 
record of him. But after considering again the tender 
and discriminating estimate which Dr. Morison has 
given of his young colleague, and the other tributes to 
his memory which are found in the following pages, it 
seems but an idle thing to say more. 

J. B. T. 

June, 1876. 



TABLE OE CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Extracts from a Memorial Pamphlet, 9 

Address by Rev. J. H. Morison, 20 

The New School of Unitarians, 29 

Faith in Christ, - - 37 

Immortality, 49 

Communion of the Soul with God, -65 

Faithfulness, 94 

Christian Liberty, 107 

Prayer, 141 

Worldly and Unworldly Wisdom, • . 152 

Faith in God, 163 

The Bible, 172 

Hope, 185 



FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN, 



Extracts from Memorial Pamphlet. 



We must ask the indulgence of our readers, if 
we should seem to them to give way too much to our 
personal feelings in the space which we set apart 
here to the memory of a very dear friend, who was 
only just beginning to indicate the place which his 
rare qualities of mind and character must soon have 
enabled him to take among us. When a distin- 
guished man, whose life has been given to the best 
things, passes from us in the fulness of years and 
honors, having finished the work which was given 
him to do, we bow reverently and silently, leaving 
his works to speak for him. The community in 
which he has lived will do justice to his memory. 
But when a young man of uncommon gifts and 



*The discourse of the Rev. Dr. Morison delivered at the funeral of Mr. 
Washburn on January 2, 1874, was printed in the Monthly Religious Magazine 
for the following February, accompanied by some " prefatory remarks" written 
by Dr. Morison himself. These remarks, together with the sermon and certain 
other matters, were reprinted by the Milton parish in a memorial pamphlet. In 
quoting now from this pamphlet, the compiler has taken leave to add the closing 
portions of the article by the Rev. Mr. Mumford, to which Dr. Morison refers, 
and from which he had quoted the earlier sentences only. 
2 



IO FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 

graces dies before his work is fairly begun, only 
those who lived in intimate relations with him can 
know how great the promise was, or how great the 
loss. And therefore there is, as in Tennyson's 
" In Memoriam," a desire to say more than what 
he has actually done might seem to justify. 

In Edmund Burke's pathetic reference to the 
death of his son, after speaking of his superiority 
" in science, in erudition, in genius, in taste, in 
honor", in generosity, in humanity, in every liberal 
sentiment and every liberal accomplishment," he 
says, " he had in himself a salient, living spring of 
generous and manly action." Then, his feeling of 
personal grief overcome by his sense of calamity 
which had fallen upon the community, he adds, 
" In this exigent moment, the loss of a finished 
man is not easily supplied." 

The loss of a finished man — a man of decided 
ability, of education, of singular purity and honor, 
giving his mind to the highest studies, and his life 
to the highest interests of man and of society — is 
a loss which no one of us can justly estimate. 
The finer elements of mind and character which 
come as original endowments to such a man, the 
wider, richer, grander influences of education, in 
its broadest sense, by which those gifts of nature 
are enlarged, enriched, and refined, and the single- 
ness of purpose with which all are devoted to the 
purest ends, are so costly and precious in them- 
selves and in their relation to the highest good of 



FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. II 

society, that we cannot subject them to any ordi- 
nary standard or method of valuation. And if 
this " finished man " is yet in the morning of life, 
with all its opportunities of personal improvement 
and advancing usefulness before him, our knowl- 
edge of what he was is but the starting point from 
which we look forward to the thought of what he 
might have been, if time and life only had been 
granted to him. 

It is with feelings of this sort — a sense of loss 
which grows upon us as we think of it, from week 
to week — that we speak here of a young man who 
held no prominent position before the public, and 
whose sole ambition was to do his duty, no matter 
in how lowly a sphere, day by day, and to make 
some progress in his spiritual life through a better 
knowledge of the truth, and a more perfect obedi- 
ence to it. 

Francis T. Washburn was born in Boston, Sept. 
24, 1843. He was graduated at Harvard Univer- 
sity in 1864. He studied law six months in the 
office of his father, William R. P. Washburn. But 
he had a drawing to what he regarded as a wider 
and more sacred field of learning. He was in the 
Cambridge Divinity School one year, when he was 
called away by the ill-health of a sister to travel 
with her in Europe, where he remained three 
years. During those years his first object was the 
care of his sister, whose health at times was such 
as to cause him extreme solicitude. It was only 



12 FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 

at broken intervals that he was able to pursue his 
studies abroad. But the opportunities for mental 
and aesthetic improvement were not lost to him. 
Soon after his return home he began to preach, 
with habits of study, with religious experiences 
and knowledge, much beyond what is usually pos- 
sessed by young men entering the ministry. But 
the special training for the work of his profession 
was incomplete. If he had gone back to the 
Divinity School, and for a year or two pursued 
his studies under the direction of the very able 
corps of teachers there, he would have begun his 
work as a preacher under far more favorable aus- 
pices. The practical exercises of the school, with 
the criticisms attending them, would have added 
greatly to his skill in the selection and treatment 
of subjects, and to his facility of expression and 
power of utterance in the pulpit. 

He was ordained associate minister of the First 
Congregational Parish in Milton, on the second of 
March, 1871. He was married the first of January, 
1873, and died on the twenty-ninth of December, 
leaving "his dearly beloved wife to mourn his loss 
before the first anniversary of their marriage had 
come round." He was in his parish less than three 
years. Many of his sermons were only experiments 
in sermon writing, — studies rather than finished 
works. They revealed the processes of doubt and 
inquiry by which he was working his way into a 
deeper comprehension, and a clearer and more 



FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 1 3 

effective expression, of truth on the greatest of all 
subjects. His hearers were made to sympathize 
with him, painfully sometimes, in the difficulties 
which he had to overcome. But those who at- 
tended his church constantly, and who became 
most familiar with his methods of thought, found 
the way clearing up before them, and views of 
divine truth opening to them with new distinctness 
and power. There was no excitement, no parade 
of sensational subjects, or use of sensational lan- 
guage. The single-minded minister of Christ, who 
had spent the week in his study searching through 
all its environments into the truth, came to his 
people on Sunday with the results of his week's, 
work. Sometimes the results seemed to them 
and to him very unsatisfactory. But they were 
helpful, nevertheless, to him and them, as leading- 
honest and truthful minds on through these tempo- 
rary stages and processes of thought to grand and 
soul-satisfying truths. 

Few ministers, in so short a time, have taken up 
so many difficult subjects to throw so much light 
upon them. The progress which he made from 
year to year was very remarkable. Not three 
months ago we heard him preach one of his ear- 
liest sermons, and on the following Sunday a 
sermon which he had just written. There was an 
immense distance between the two, in fulness and 
freshness of thought, in depth of Christian feel- 
ing, in freedom and power of expression, and in 



14 FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 

that mellowing harmony and richness of style 
which come only from the deepest and holiest 
experiences of life. We felt that he was just be- 
ginning to preach. With his habits and methods 
of study, with his single eye to the truth, and 
his love of truth and devotion to it for its own 
sake, he seemed to us, more than any other young 
man that we knew, to be the one who should 
lay open to the rising generation among us the 
great truths of our religion, as can be done only by 
a thorough scholar and thinker, with delicate sym- 
pathies 3 and an ever-enlarging Christian conscious- 
ness. What he did was but the budding promise 
of what he might have done. 

It is a comfort to think of the impression which 
this young man has made during his brief ministry 
on - some of the best minds among us. The Rev. 
Nathaniel Hall, of Dorchester, in his New Year's 
Sermon, said : — 

Of one other, added to the year's dead, within the 
very last of its days, my heart urges me to speak, whose 
early manhood was full of the best promise, as was his 
heart of a sweet and winning goodness, and his life — 
so far as I was privileged to know it — of a consecrated 
fidelity. I refer to the young minister of Milton. 

There is to me a peculiar sadness in his death, — 
like what we might feel in a bright and cloudless morn- 
ing enwrapped in sudden night, only that faith assures 
us that his morning is brightening on, where night and 
cloud are not, towards the Perfect Day. 



FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 1 5 

The following is from a notice of him, written 
for the Norfolk County Gazette, by one of his most 
faithful and intelligent parishioners : — 

It is a very great loss which the town of Milton 
suffers in the death of this pure-hearted and faithful 
minister. He was a man of public spirit, and attended 
to all the duties of a good citizen. He was present at 
the primary political meetings and at town-meetings, 
and took his full share of service on the school com- 
mittee. The clock upon the old meeting-house — the 
first striking clock that the town ever had, and placed 
there by his exertions — will long remind the citizens 
of Milton, as it tells the passing hours, of his generous 
and laborious efforts to serve them. 

The graces of his personal presence and character 
will be cherished in the remembrance of many persons. 
He had a singular simplicity and sweetness in his 
demeanor, in which there was always at the same time 
a reserve and gentle dignity, that told of a secret 
strength, and of resources not disclosed to every eye. 
His intellect was clear, vigorous, well-trained, cautious, 
free from illusions. The great preeminent longing of 
his soul was for the truth, — the truth wherever it might 
lead him; and this bred in him a sweet humility and 
openness of mind such as are seldom seen. Never did 
any one hold his opinions in a sweeter temper and tone 
of mind. He never dogmatized ; he often doubted, 
but seldom denied. 

His mere presence in the pulpit was a source of 
refinement and spiritual culture to all who saw him. 
Many lamented as they looked upon that slender frame 



1 6 FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 

that he had not a greater vigor of body. But in this 
very weakness the power of his soul was manifest, and 
there were those among his people who could hardly 
ever witness without moistening eyes the spectacle of 
his simple devotion, and the kindling of the pure flame 
of his saintly and aspiring soul. 

A truthful and beautiful notice of Mr. Washburn 
appeared in the Christian Register, written by his 
neighbor and friend, Rev. T. J. Mumford, in which 
it is said : — 

He was a man born to be loved and honored, but it 
took time and somewhat thorough acquaintance to 
reveal the wealth of his mind, the warmth of his heart, 
and the nobility of his high spirit. His face was one 
of almost maidenly purity and delicacy, and his bearing 
was marked by a modest reserve ; but few men are so 
strong and brave and true, or meet the trials of life 
with stouter souls. Never profuse in his professions, 
always regarding the sacred privacies of individual 
natures, when there was warrant for his sympathy, or 
need of his help, he was a friend indeed. Those who 
confided in him found that they " put their nests in a 
rock." 

In intellectual power and extensive attainments he 
had few equals among our younger ministers. There 
was no taint of superficiality in his scholarly tastes or 
aims. Everything that he printed was characterized by 
scrupulous accuracy, and the most magnanimous wish 
to be just to opponents. The frequent hesitation in 
his utterance was probably occasioned by his conscien- 
tious desire to speak the truth. Therefore he was 



FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. lj 

satisfied with no word which did not really represent 
his thought. We do not believe that a sincerer person 
has ever lived. 

Interested in education, and faithful to his trust as a 
member of the school committee, he gave himself 
chiefly to the work of his profession. We heard him 
preach only twice, and one of the sermons chanced to 
be the last that he ever delivered. Both these dis- 
courses were exceedingly able and impressive, and we 
shall never forget some of their leading passages. He 
was one of the men that we like to see in the pulpit ; in 
whose preparation of mind and soul we had unbounded 
confidence ; and to whose influence we surrendered our- 
selves with a delightful sense of spiritual security. 
Nothing was done for effect. It was impossible to 
suspect him of cant or any kind of overstatements. He 
bore witness only to such truths as he knew and loved 
and was. We went away, not admiring graceful gest- 
ures or artful tones, but hungering and thirsting after 
righteousness. 

His relations to his senior colleague were so cordial 
and satisfactory that they filled the whole neighbor- 
hood with the fragrance of affection. When we saw 
them, each seeking not his own, but the other's, welfare, 
we said to ourselves, "Behold, how good and how 
pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity ! " 
This exquisite spectacle has done much to remove a 
great doubt of the modern ministry, in which both 
young and old clergymen have so often confessed them- 
selves incapable of the generous forbearance and the 
filial and fraternal love required to prevent rivalry and 
discord between colleagues. In Milton, if nowhere 



1 8 FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 

else, could be found a young man looking with un- 
feigned satisfaction upon every token of reverence and 
gratitude toward his senior, and an old man stimulat- 
ing confidence and hope towards his junior, as if his 
daily life were a cheerful sermon from the text, "He 
must increase, but I must decrease." 

The following extracts are from a letter sent to 
Mr. Washburn's family by the Boston Association 
of Ministers : — 

We felt in him the power of a strong, true soul, high- 
minded in the least as in the greatest things, pure as 
the snow, single in purpose, of a consecrated fidelity, 
untiring, unselfish. A courtesy born of Christian loving 
kindness, a rare refinement, the humility of a servant of 
the Truth, the gentleness of a spirit which respected 
others, the frank sincerity of a spirit which respected 
himself, the holiness of a devout lover of God and of 
good, shone on us in his face, and made it as the face 
of an angel. 

The counsel of his measured speech, weighty with 
ripe meditation, the scholarly conscience which guided 
his studies, the vigor of his thought and candor of his 
mind, the Christian sweetness and light which he 
breathed, and which he was, taught us to anticipate 
from him rich fruits of garnered knowledge, and were 
an inspiration to his brethren, alike by the sincerity 
with which he sought for Truth, and by the joy with 
which he found it. 

And his love of his high calling helped us, the oldest 
as well as the youngest, to see afresh its opportunities 
of service and sacrifice. 



FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. IO, 

We close our extracts from others with a poem 
written by the Rev. H. C. Badger : — 

FRANCIS T. WASHBURN. 

[The Norfolk Conference met with the Milton Church, October, 1875. Those 
present will recall the day, the theme, and the discussion.] 

Sweet soul, I think of thee 
As we last met, when Milton's wooded slopes 

October gorgeously 
Flooded with light ; and when thy face, more bright 
Even than its wont, shone with thy spirit's light, 

The while we sought to prove 
Which better keeps and cheers a people's hopes, 

Faith, Holiness, or Love. 

" We need the three ! " you cried ; 
" Faith as the root, — the others stem and crown." 
" And, lo ! " I said, " beside 
This servant's right hand, on this church's wall, 
The crowning words, — ' The first command of all 

Is love to man and God : ' 
To quicken Thought and Work the words look down, 
As sunbeams cheer the sod." 

We thought not then of Death ! 
But had the fading glory of that day 

Been as God's voice which saith 
To startled hearts, " Choose ye a messenger, 
One without spot or blemish, fit to bear 

And be first fruits to me," 
Hearing, had they turned quickly to obey, 

Who had not turned to thee ? 

Go, thou, most sweet, most rare ! 

Another's life were done, 
Gone from our vision ; but while thou art there, 



20 FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 

Still art thou here : thy grace, thy gentleness, 
Thy love, the marvellous sweetness of thy face, 

Thy courteous sympathy : 
Graces and virtues which in thee were one 

Heaven suffers not to die. 

Quick in our hearts thou art 
Already rooted, an undying joy, 

An ever-living part ! 
Deep grief is ours, but deeper gratitude 
Beside, that we have known a soul so good ! 

Sweeter shall all things be ; 
Truth lovelier ; Life a greater harmony 

Interpreted by thee ! 

DISCOURSE BY REV. J. H. MORISON, D. D., 

SENIOR PASTOR OF THE PARISH. 

" Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold 
an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile." — John i., 47. 

" Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see God." — Matt. 
v., 8. 

" If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full 
of light." — Matt, vi., 22. 

" It doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we know that, 
when he shall appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him 
as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth 
himself, even as he is pure." — I. John iii., 2, 3. 

These words bring before us the image of our friend, 
and carry us with him very far into the kingdom of 
heaven. 

A little less than three years ago we met here, by 
appropriate and solemn rites, to set apart as a minister 
of Christ a young man who was little known to most of 



FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 21 

us. Gradually we came to feel that the public services 
had been full of significance, because preceded and fol- 
lowed by the secret, continual, and entire consecration, 
which he was making of himself to his great and sacred 
calling. We welcomed him as a stranger, and by gentle 
approaches he has been winning his way to our hearts, 
and now Ave begin to see that we were entertaining 
unawares an angel of truth and mercy, who in all these 
months has been laboring among us to bring God's 
kingdom of righteousness and peace and love more 
truly into our lives. And so to-day, on the threshold 
of a new year, before its subdued greetings have quite 
died away, we come here, with flowers and kindly 
offices, with loving, trusting affections, with hymns and 
prayers and tearful benedictions, to bid farewell to as 
truthful, as gentle, as pure, unselfish, devout, and loving 
a spirit as we have ever known. God be with us in this 
time of our bereavement. 

For nearly three years he has been here doing the 
work of a Christian minister. He loved his profession 
and all its duties. No member of the parish was too 
remote or too obscure to awaken a genuine interest in 
him. If there had been more self-assertion in his 
personal bearing, and more of show in his man- 
ner of preaching, he would perhaps have produced 
more decided and immediate results. But then we 
could not feel towards him as we do now. He could 
not have grown into our affections and our confidence 
as he did. His life and conversation were so gentle 
and undemonstrative, his language was so simple and 
unexaggerated, that we sometimes failed to see how 
weighty and how pertinent the thought or the illustra- 



22 FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 

tion was. Here was a man with an original mind, and 
with scholarly tastes and habits which must have made 
him a very learned man. Here was a man with a 
philosophical insight which took him at once to the 
centre of a great subject, and with strength of mind to 
hold it steadily before him while he made the nice dis- 
criminations which are essential in order to gain a just 
view of the truth. And then there was such perfect 
fairness of mind. A more truthful man never lived. 
In these great qualities, so rare at all times, and espe- 
cially in these days of hastily formed and rashly uttered 
opinions, I know not where to find a young man to fill 
the place which he has left vacant in our profession. 
I hardly know of more than three or four men of any 
age among us who in these respects equalled him as a 
searcher after the highest truth. His essay " On the 
Communion of the Soul with God " is a model of philo- 
sophical thought, in its clear-sightedness, reaching down 
into the depths of a great and difficult subject, while it 
is not less remarkable for its nice distinctions and the 
spiritual intuitions by which it takes us up from simple 
elementary principles to the loftiest and most inspiring 
results. I do not wonder that it was translated by a 
very intelligent gentleman, and circulated in Germany 
as admirably adapted to the exacting and discriminating 
mind of German students. 

But this is not the place or the time to analyze his 
character. We would rather give way to our affections, 
and think of him as he rises before us in the duties of 
his sacred calling, and in the daily intercourse and 
offices of life. He came among us a thoughtful, thor- 
oughly educated man, with very modest pretensions for 



FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 2$ 

himself, but with great ideas of what a Christian life 
and a Christian minister should be. And every year 
we could see that he was entering more deeply into the 
mind and heart of Christ, that he was taking up into 
his own nature more and more of divine truth, that his 
spiritual vision was growing clearer and broader, and 
that in his daily conversation, through great accessions 
of happiness and great sorrows, he was transformed 
more and more into the image of Christ. There was 
an increasing tenderness, a softening pathos about 
him, a bowing down of spirit as if under the sense of 
weightier cares and obligations. But we did not think 
that he was ripening so fast for other realms of being. 
He was a true, brave man. I could not see that the 
thought of himself, or of consequences to himself, ever 
had the slightest influence either on his judgment or 
his conduct. He had so subordinated himself to the 
higher rules of living, that it seemed no longer a sacri- 
fice to give up his personal wishes or interests. He was 
as docile as a child in listening to suggestions, but in 
his adherence to his matured convictions as calm and 
as firm as the polar star. 

But, after all, the strength of his nature lay in his 
affections. With all his love of philosophical investiga- 
tion, with all his scholarly tastes, and his joy in the 
higher walks of literature and art, with his sensitive 
and almost fastidious refinement of sentiment, his 
affections were more to him than all the rest. It was 
his love to man and God that made this place so dear 
and sacred to him. Human beings were more to him 
than abstract truths. A human soul, in the full and 
perfect development of all its powers, through the 



24 FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 

indwelling presence and spirit of God as he saw it in 
the great head of our humanity, was to him the truest 
emblem or revelation that he could have of the divine 
mind. 

He loved to recognize the old-fashioned ties of 
kindred and neighborhood, and the delicate offices and 
relationships which grow out of them, and bind a whole 
community together as one living organism. He loved 
his friends. He lived in them. The members of his 
family were only more sacred portions of his own 
being. He felt a sort of obligation to any one who 
had ever been connected with them. * Some of us saw 
how he devoted himself to an old dependent upon his 
father's family, who had been broken down by intem- 
perance, and whose claims upon his means, his time, 
and his strength, he held binding while he lived, and 
till he had seen him with fitting services laid in his 
grave. 

He loved his friends and neighbors. He loved his 
brethren in the ministry. He loved to see those whom 
he met in our conferences and social gatherings. He 
did not put his feelings into words. But he loved to be 
where young people and children were. He was always 
thoughtful for others. His actions, his bearing towards 
them, his yearning, though often hesitating, manner of 
approach, his courtesy which never failed him, his gen- 
tle dignity, the mark of a lofty, lowly spirit, his look, 
and the tones of his voice, showed the reality and 
depth and tenderness of his personal feelings. 

During his sickness, when hardly conscious of any- 
thing else, he often showed his thoughtfulness for 
others, and the feeling of thankfulness was evidently 



FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 2$ 

uppermost in his thoughts. Only a few hours before 
he died, he seemed to think that he was in the church 
with his friends, and with affecting earnestness he said, 
" I can scarcely speak, — I can scarcely open my mouth. 
I want to thank you before we part. I have been 
deeply touched — touched to the heart — to find how 
knit together we are in love. I must thank you, friends. 
Ever since the beginning of my sickness, kindness has 
poured in upon me from every side, and I have found 
nothing but helpfulness." 

In the last sermon that I heard from him, the last 
but one that he ever preached, are these words, which 
may fittingly be applied to himself : " Meekness, humil- 
ity, patience, simple truthfulness, and modesty, — to 
these virtues it sometimes seems to me as though our 
times were specially blind. But doubtless there is 
something in the nature of these rare and fragrant 
virtues which hides them from the public gaze. They 
are, rather, private, personal, intimate, known only of 
those who feel their blessing. Virtue is indeed its 
own reward. There is in every worthy trait of charac- 
ter a native beauty. To live worthily is life in the true 
sense. Our moral nature feels itself true when it is 
living in accordance with the moral law, and rejoices 
in the harmony. Here upon earth, the good and faith- 
ful souls build the unseen kingdom, which is not of this 
world, though present in it, — here they build the 
unseen kingdom not for themselves alone, but for all 
who, led by right desire, seek to join them in their 
faithful life. And looking at the hearts of these faith- 
ful ones, and at their works, we are persuaded that the 
kingdom which they form and build is indeed the king- 



26 FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 

dom of God. To the virtue and the grace which we 
behold in them there is something answering in us, 
something rooted deep in us, the mystery *of faith and 
worship, which unites us with them in sympathy and 
hope, and turns our hearts with theirs to God. By 
bringing his truth into our lives, by uplifting our hearts 
with the highest faith and the best hopes to which we 
can attain, we may grow into that grace of spirit of 
which the special virtues are the fruit. And among 
these various fruits of the Spirit is this virtue of 
Patience, which begins with common tasks, but which 
rises gradually into a high, exalted grace, upholding 
the heart, healing evil, perfecting our life and work." 

These are the last words that I ever heard our 
brother preach. "This virtue of Patience, which begins 
with common tasks, but which rises gradually into a 
high, exalted grace, upholding the heart, healing the 
evil, perfecting our life and work." 

Even higher and better suited to our present needs 
are these other words of his : " When we pray, ' Thy 
will be done,' it is most frequently with the thought that 
the evil in us may be subdued, and our hearts resigned. 
But there is a higher consciousness than that, — to pray 
rejoicingly that God's will be done. In some rare 
moments in our own experience, in the lives of holier 
men, and, above all, in Jesus Christ, we see this rejoic- 
ing in the life of God, a conscious oneness of life with 
him. Thy will, thy glorious will, be done, sings the 
rejoicing heart. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, 
' I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, . . . 
for so it seems good in thy sight.' That glad oneness 
of life with God, and delight in his work, — that is the 



FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 2*] 

communion with him towards which our prayers tend, 
that the eternal life, which by God's grace we hope may 
be revealed in us." 

And has not this eternal life been revealed to us in 
him ? Have we not recognized in him the workings of 
an immortal power, — the inward glow and calmness 
and depth of a life fed from the life of God in the hal- 
lowed and hidden experiences of his heart which can 
never die ? 

These flowers then are not placed here in bitter 
irony. They are to us the sweet and beautiful emblems 
of a life as sweet, as gentle, as pure - and beautiful as 
themselves, and which, unlike themselves, shall live on 
forever. We therefore tenderly and lovingly commit 
the body of our dear brother to the ground — earth to 
earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, — in sure and cer- 
tain, trust that he has already risen into the eternal life. 
Great indeed is the loss to us, — to the cause of sacred 
learning, and thus the whole Church of Christ. Great 
is the loss to us all in this town, but especially to the 
members of this congregation who were beginning to 
understand his worth, and to love and honor and almost 
to reverence him. I dare not trust myself to speak of 
what he has been to me, and of what I had hoped that 
he might still be, till he should be called to do for me 
what I am now so poorly fitted to do for him. Of the 
loss in still nearer and closer relations, I dare not even 
think, except with silent prayer to Him who alone can 
comfort and bless them. 

But it is not all a loss. The life of such a man lives 
on in the hearts of those who loved him. It is an 
example and an inspiration. Such devotedness to man 



28 FRANCIS TUCKER WASHBURN. 

and God, a soul so generous, so self-forgetting, must 
quicken a kindred spirit in other souls. And then we 
know not what offices of inspiration and instruction, 
what ministries of love and tenderness, reach down to 
earth from heaven to hallow the ground we tread and 
every sphere of life, to consecrate our church anew by 
a diviner spirit, and fill our homes and our hearts with 
the sweetness of hopes and affections breathed into 
them by dear and blessed messengers of God. 

" I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to 
you. Because I live, ye shall live also." " If a man 
love me he will keep my words ; and my Father will 
love him, and we will come and make our abode with 
Him." " Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto 
you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you ; let not 
your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." "And 
I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Blessed 
are the dead which die in the Lord, from henceforth ; 
even so, saith the spirit, for they rest from their labors, 
and their works do follow them." 



THE NEW SCHOOL OF UNITAEIANS. 



I have waited patiently for some representative 
of what for lack of a better name I must call the 
new school of Unitarians, to take the stand and 
give evidence for his party with regard to the ques- 
tion now agitated in the denomination ; but no one 
seems to have appeared, and so I feel constrained, 
since no one else will do it, to do it myself. A 
somewhat wide inquiry convinces me that the body 
to which I belong is large in numbers, and respect- 
able in intelligence and character, and that while I 
can speak with full responsibility only for myself 
in any particular, my position, nevertheless, repre- 
sents, in the main, that of a large proportion of our 
clergy and laity. May I ask you to listen to a 
statement of that position, begging you to supply 
from your own knowledge and reflection the defi- 
ciencies hardly avoidable in a scanty sketch of so 
large a matter ? 

We are not " original Unitarians." We are con- 
scious that something of a distance exists between 



30 NEW SCHOOL OF UNITARIANS. 

our doctrines and those of Channing and the Unita- 
rians of fifty years ago. Doubtless a different phil- 
osophy from theirs, though we may not know ex- 
actly what it is, is bound up with our theology. We 
do not find the expression which they give to their 
belief satisfying to us. Their language is not the 
natural and just expression of our thought. If we 
use it, we find that it does not fit our thought, but 
that we must fit our thought to it, a process usually 
attended with some strain to mind and conscience. 
Where we feel the strain most is in that general 
line of thought, indicated by the words supernat- 
ural, superhuman, infallible, authoritative, miracu- 
lous, and the like. In these directions the new 
school has drawn in its lines, if I may so say, or 
indulges in a shorter range of thought. The " orig- 
inal Unitarians," if I mistake not — I mean Chan- 
ning and his school, — affirm Christ to be more than 
a "mere man," to be superhuman, to have super- 
natural powers, and supernatural authority. The 
" new school " is silent about that, for it confesses 
its inability to judge of the possibilities of the 
" mere man." If Christ can tell " mere men " to 
be perfect, as God is perfect, we, accepting that 
thought, do not feel justified in affirming him to be 
superhuman. We do not know the limits "of the 
human. Though we believe Jesus to be unique in 
human history, we yet see no reason for taking him 
out of human history, or making him other than a 
man. With this view of the person of Jesus, is 



NEW SCHOOL OF UNITARIANS. 3 I 

connected our view of his words and acts. Abso- 
lute infallibility, and absolute perfection, and all 
else absolute, seem to us incompatible with human 
conditions. "There is none good" — absolutely 
good — "but one, that is God." Again, that Christ 
had supernatural powers, or supernatural authority, 
or was the author of a supernatural revelation, we 
cannot affirm, for we confess our inability to draw 
the line between the natural and the supernatural. 
We do not know the limits of the natural. We 
may say in general, also, that where the "original 
Unitarians " use absolute superlatives, we use rela- 
tive superlatives. We do not, for instance, call 
Christ absolutely perfect ; we do not take him out 
of comparison with mankind ; we simply call him 
the most perfect of men. We are very shy of ab- 
solute terms, or of absolute thoughts. 

With regard to the Bible, also, we hold an analo- 
gous position. While we consider it the unique 
book, we yet see no reason to take it out of human 
conditions. We know that men wrote it. We find 
proof in it of human imperfection. We accept its 
general teaching as authority ; as having, besides 
its original weight, the sanction of many genera- 
tions of the best and purest of men ; but not as 
absolute or infallible authority, for that seems to us 
incompatible with human conditions. Holding as 
true the method of Biblical criticism which Dr. 
Noyes taught us — that is, the necessity of a crit- 
ical and scientific examination of the Scriptures as 



32 NEW SCHOOL OF UNITARIANS. 

a step to a thorough knowledge of them, — we think 
this method not to have been as yet thoroughly 
applied. We believe that an immense amount of 
hard study remains to be done, all over Christen- 
dom, before the critical method will have developed 
anything like its full results. Subjecting the Bible 
also to the common canons of historical evidence, 
we find ourselves unconvinced of some things re- 
lated in it, which the " original Unitarians " accept 
as fact. Thus, with regard to the extraordinary 
events related in the Gospels, known as miracles, 
while we believe most of the accounts of them to 
have some historical basis, while we believe most 
of the cases of healing to have taken place, yet 
with regard to some of the most remarkable mira- 
cles, including the resurrection, we do not find the 
historical evidence overwhelming enough to offset 
the extraordinary character of the occurrences, and 
the likelihood of illusion, whose presence a com- 
parison with analogous cases in religious history 
has taught us to suspect. 

I have tried to indicate in what way the " new 
school " varies from that of the " original Unitari- 
ans." I have tried to state our negative side. To 
our credit be it said, we usually preserve a discreet 
silence upon this negative side. We think it nei- 
ther necessary nor proper, on ordinary occasions, 
to trouble the public with telling them what we do 
not believe. But have we any positive side ? Are 
we Christians by any fair showing? Upon this 



NEW SCHOOL OF UNITARIANS. 33 

point, we have that inward monitor upon our side 
against which .the thunders of excommunication 
can only peal in vain. We are Christians, and we 
profess ourselves such, because we believe in Christ ; 
because we regard him as the greatest person whom 
God has given us power to know; because we re- 
gard his thought as the apprehension of divine 
realities beyond the original scope of any other 
human intellect, his life as the most perfect obedi- 
ence to divine truth known in human history. We 
believe in Christ as the one person whose nature 
includes within itself the natures of all other men, 
and stretches far beyond them all, beyond the reach 
of our thought. We believe in him as the one 
man whose greatness no one has yet fully fath- 
omed, whose nature we can only hope to know in 
part. We humbly profess ourselves his disciples 
and his followers, looking to him for teaching, and 
for guidance and help. 

But are we Unitarians ? Have we any right to 
be in the Unitarian body ? We agree that to be- 
long by right to any body, we need to be in har- 
mony, to some extent, at any rate, with its general 
faith and principles ; that fellowship is only possi- 
ble among those animated by kindred principles 
and purposes ; that fellowship will be perfect in 
proportion as the unity of the faith is perfect. The 
practical question then is, are we in sufficient har- 
mony with Unitarianism to belong to it, or, consider- 
ing ourselves in it, to stay in it ? Or is there such 



34 NEW SCHOOL OF UNITARIANS. 

a radical difference between us as to make with- 
drawal our only honest course ? By our action we 
have answered these questions. Are we right in 
our answer ? I think we are. In the first place, 
the notion that any body of doctrine can endure in 
identical unity through two generations is an illu- 
sion. No two individuals are identical, much less 
two generations. It is a simple certainty that the 
faith of one generation will vary from that of its 
predecessor; but must each generation split off 
from its predecessor, and set up a new sect ? 
Heaven forefend ! We love our mother Church. 
We are grateful for her teachings. We cannot 
wholly agree with her, but shall we, on that account, 
break with her ? 

No ; we love the Church in which we were born ; 
we are bound to it " by natural piety." We feel 
that we not only have a right to stay in it, but that 
we are bound to stay in it, unless a radical differ- 
ence of faith should inwardly alienate us, or out- 
ward pressure should exile us from it. This is the 
sentimental side for those of us who are Unitarians 
by birthright. It is an honest sentiment whose 
guidance we should not hesitate, in case of doubt, 
to follow. But our position is very defensible in 
reason. We hold that there is a substantial unity 
of the faith between us and the Unitarian fathers, 
that the difference in our faith is no more than 
that just and natural variance to be expected from 
our different conditions. Like the Unitarian fa- 



NEW SCHOOL OF UNITARIANS. 35 

thers, we believe in the absolute unity of God, in 
the headship of Jesus Christ, in the supreme value 
of the Bible as containing the Gospel of Christ, 
and as showing us its historical preparation and its 
first fruits. We believe, like them, in the outward 
Church as an institution for continuing and unfold- 
ing to their universal ends the thought and life of 
Christ. And we believe, like them, in religious 
liberty, in leaning ever toward the largest possible 
religious fellowship, letting any one join us who 
wants to join us; nay, going into the highways and 
byways, and compelling them to come in, even at 
the risk of getting into strange company. We 
stand, as our fathers did, upon the outskirts of the 
Christian Church in loose array, each seemingly 
for himself, with little apparent order or leadership, 
yet at our posts, an essential part of the great 
army. We hear the voices of the early leaders 
commanding us to hold fast to the liberties of our 
Church ; to guard its freedom with jealous watchful- 
ness, not to bind the word of God, or the Gospel 
of Christ ; to turn no man away who may wish to 
join us, or may hope to be helped by us ; to have 
faith in the honesty of our fellowmen, and to be- 
lieve that they come to us not as traitors but as 
friends; to receive, them liberally, be they never 
so strange to us. We listen to these high com- 
mands, and our hearts beat back responsive. Yes, 
we will keep our posts. The order, the security, 
the close array, the gathered numbers, these might 



36 NEW SCHOOL OF UNITARIANS. 

be ours, if to gain them we would barter our tradi- 
tional principles, and desert our posts. We will do 
neither. We will keep our posts if they be only 
outposts, or even single pickets. 

Thus we hold ourselves to be Unitarian Christ- 
ians, and are determined not to leave our Church, 
unless forced out. If the issue upon these matters 
in which we vary from the faith of the fathers be 
forced, it is evident, since a line of cleavage exists, 
that a split may be made ; that is, if the " original 
Unitarian" party push this issue hard enough, they 
will split either the " new school " off, or themselves 
off, whichever happens to be the larger body. I 
think that, though self-elected, I represent a united 
constituency in saying that any such disunion 
would cause us unselfish and deep pain. Doubtless 
our more conservative brethren would feel the 
same, although it may be that they will feel con- 
vinced of the necessity of forcing the issue. I 
have tried to add something to the evidence needed 
for a just judgment of the matter, in stating as 
well as I could the position of one large party in 
the Unitarian Church, as at present constituted, the 
party which comes next in order to the " original 
Unitarian " or Channing party, which with regard 
to the " original Unitarians " is radical; with regard 
to those accounted specially the radicals of the 
body is conservative. 



FAITH IN CHEIST. 



" Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the 
works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall 
he do; because I go unto my Father." — John xiv., 12. 

The form of Jesus passed from the earth, but 
the truth and love and grace which were in him, 
and which had dwelt for a season among men, did 
not pass from the earth with his mortal frame. 
They lived on in the spirits of those who believed 
on him. Through the faith of these believers the 
narrow boundary which shut in Christ's immediate 
action widened out over distant lands ; through this 
faith the work of Christ extended beyond the limits 
of his mortal life, increasing with the increase of 
years ; through it Jesus Christ still acts upon the 
world, and he who, eighteen hundred years ago, 
went about Galilee and Judea doing good, now, 
through the faith of millions of believers, goes 
about the whole world doing good ; is, under God, 
chief among the spiritual leaders of mankind. 



38 FAITH IN CHRIST. 

What is this faith in Christ through which this 
work has been done ? What is faith ? It seems 
sometimes as though we missed understanding re- 
ligious things by trying too hard to understand 
them, by straining our minds in our effort to dis- 
cover them, by seeking them as far as possible out- 
side of our common knowledge and experience. 
It seems wiser to begin our inquiry by looking into 
near and familiar places, and seeing if we may not 
there discover some trace of what we seek. When 
we believe in any one, what is it that makes up our 
faith in him ? May we not say simply, and in gen- 
eral, that faith in any one is the judgment of our 
minds that he is worthy to be trusted, joined with 
the leaning of our hearts to trust him ? This com- 
plex process of thought and feeling may be gone 
through with unconsciously ; but we become con- 
scious of it, at any rate, when we are losing faith 
in one whom we had trusted, when our hearts 
which will have it so, strive with our minds which 
declare that it is not so ; and we may have had the 
brighter experience of gaining faith in a friend, by 
gradually perceiving in one whom we had loved, 
but whose excellence we had mistrusted, virtues at 
first unrecognized. Faith in any person, then, we 
may call in general a leaning, attachment, or alle- 
giance of our minds and hearts to that person. If 
our minds are disaffected, if we are suspicious of a 
person's claims upon us, our faith cannot but be 
weak at best, nor if our hearts hold back can our 



FAITH IN CHRIST. 39 

faith be strong. But when both mind and heart 
consent, when our judgment and affection both 
agree, when the one says it is so, and the other re- 
sponds to it, then we have faith. 

If we consider those whom we believe in, we 
shall find that our faith in different persons varies 
with their character. One man we believe to be 
honest, and him we trust for his honesty. Another 
man we believe to be wise, to be able to see the 
truth regardless of persons or circumstances, and 
him we trust for his wisdom ; and so we might go 
on, and for every one of our acquaintance we should 
find we had a different faith, varying with the char- 
acter of the persons. And again, if we should take 
a man's friends, if we should take a number of per- 
sons who all agreed in believing in one man, and 
should learn precisely what kind of faith each one 
had in him, we should find that no two men be- 
lieved in him in precisely the same way ; that while 
all believed in him, yet the nature of that faith, 
while in all it might have certain general features 
of likeness, while in many it might be almost iden- 
tical, varied, nevertheless, in each one according 
to his own peculiar character and attainments, 
according to the justness of his judgment, the 
warmth of his heart, his knowledge of the man, 
and his sympathy with him. The simpler the 
character of the person who was the object of their 
faith, the greater would be the likeness in his 
friends' faith in him ; the more complete and the 



40 FAITH IN CHRIST. 

higher his character, the greater would be the 
diversity in his friends' faith in him. 

Take, for instance, our faith in two very different 
men, Napoleon Bonaparte and Shakespeare. Our 
faith in these men varies with their character. We 
believe in Napoleon as a soldier, as a wonderful 
commander, — one of those rare • natures in whom 
is coiled up a mysterious power over men, at whose 
word a mixed multitude, a confused mass of men, 
collects itself, takes shape and form, organizes it- 
self into one body, and moves irresistible and over- 
whelming, yet obedient to the controlling will of 
its superior. We believe in Napoleon as one of 
the world's great captains, fit to rank with resist- 
less Alexander and imperial Caesar, and with his 
own great antagonist and conqueror. But we be- 
lieve in Shakespeare as a poet, as a man of marvel- 
ous creative imagination, of wonderful insight into 
the things of nature and into the heart of man, of 
universal sympathy with nature and man ; we be- 
lieve in him as the crowning glory of our English 
tongue. Thus we believe in both, but our faith 
in them varies with their character. And, again, 
take the faith of different persons in Shakespeare. 
Take a number of persons who all believe in him, 
and question them as to the nature of their faith in 
him. Some would know little of him except his 
name, and would believe in him through faith in 
the general judgment of mankind. Others would 
be familiar with the common quotations from him ; 



FAITH IN CHRIST. 4 1 

their faith would be mostly held upon trust in the 
public judgment, but would be a little enlightened 
by personal knowledge. Others, again, would have 
read some of his plays, or seen them acted, and felt 
their power. And others would have read him, 
and understood him, and loved him. It is plain 
that the faith of these persons varies with each 
one's character and attainments ; that the one who 
believes in Shakespeare after reading him has a 
different faith in him, and a faith more firmly 
based, than the one who only believes in him from 
hearsay ; that he who understands him and sympa- 
thizes with him has a better faith in him than he 
who does not understand or sympathize with him. 

Our faith in any person, then, is conditioned 
both by that person's character and nature, and by 
our own character and nature. Faith in any one, 
to be firm, must be based upon some excellence in 
him; and, supposing that excellence to exist, our 
faith in it will be perfect, according as our knowl- 
edge and understanding of it, and our sympathy 
with it, are perfect. 

Faith in Christ is subject to these same condi- 
tions. It presupposes the existence and the excel- 
lence of Christ's person, and it demands of us 
knowledge of him, understanding of his thought 
and life, and sympathy with him, or love and rever- 
ence for him. If Christ's thought and life be false 
and wrong, then is our Christian faith baseless; 
then the sooner it passes away the better; then we 



42 FAITH IN CHRIST. 

may be sure it will pass away. The only sure 
foundation of our Christian faith must ever be the 
reality and the truth of Christ's personality, of his 
thought or teaching, of his life or example. That 
is the central point of Christianity. If we believe 
in Christ, if our minds and hearts acknowledge him 
as our spiritual leader, acknowledge his thought as 
true, his life as transcendently good, then we are 
by right Christians, let whosoever may deny it. 

Faith in Christ, then, has for its object a fixed 
and unalterable fact, — Christ himself. No device 
of man's, no cunning of priestcraft, no pious fraud, 
no revolutionary passion, no human short-sighted- 
ness or malice, can in the slightest degree alter 
that fact. And yet if we were to ask our Christian 
neighbors what they mean by faith in Christ, we 
should get a great variety of answers. And if we 
could get beneath their formal answers, and read 
what is written in their consciences, get at the real 
nature of their Christian faith, we should find an- 
other diversity. While we might find more sub- 
stantial agreement than we had looked for, while 
we might find large numbers of persons whose 
faith agreed in complexion and general features, we 
should yet find each individual to have an individ- 
ual faith varying from all the rest, even as one 
man's face varies from all other men's. The cause 
of this diversity in the faith of Christians is not 
far to seek ; for Christian faith not only requires 
an object of belief, but demands knowledge and 



FAITH IN CHRIST. 43 

sympathy, or allegiance, in the believer, so that for 
a number of believers to have an identical faith 
would require not only that the object of that faith 
should be one and the same object, but that the 
nature and state of all the believers should be iden- 
tical. Such entire unity of Christian faith is im- 
possible, even if it were desirable. We have not 
all the same powers, nor the same opportunities, 
nor are all equally faithful. We are, however, all 
alike in one sad particular, — that we are all imper- 
fect ; that the wisest and best of us only knows in 
part, and only obeys in part, and therefore the faith 
of all of us is imperfect. If our knowledge and 
understanding of Christ, of his thought and life, 
were co-extensive with that thought and life, if our 
obedience were co-extensive with our knowledge, 
then, but not till then, would our Christian faith 
be perfect ; and that faith is comparatively perfect 
in proportion as we know and comprehend Christ's 
teaching and example, and in proportion as this 
knowledge becomes conviction, and bears fruit in 
our lives. There is some lamentation over the de- 
cline of Christian faith at the present time, and 
though it is very doubtful if there be such a de- 
cline, it is certainly true that there is now, and 
always has been, a lamentable lack of this faith in 
the world, and that every effort should be made to 
renew and increase it in ourselves and others. 
How may we renew and increase faith in Christ ? 
There may be other useful ways, but the simplest, 



44 FAITH IN CHRIST. 

and perhaps the most effectual, and certainly the 
hardest method, is to renew the elements of this 
faith in ourselves, — that is, the fact of Christ's 
personality, of his thought and life, remaining fixed ; 
if that thought and life be true, as we believe, then 
we must renew and increase our knowledge and 
understanding of it, and our loyalty to it, so that 
his thought shall become more perfectly teaching 
to us, his life become more perfectly an example to 
us. We must strive to perfect our faith. 

And how shall we know that our faith is the 
true faith ? What authority can we have that we 
may not be mistaken ? We can have no infallible 
authority ; we may be mistaken. We can have no 
infallible authority, and yet we may have some au- 
thority. We may have the authority of our con- 
sciences enlightened by the experience of mankind, 
and by the teaching and the lives of the wise and 
good who have lived before us, and are living now. 
We may have the authority of our consciences act- 
ing under direct and full responsibility to God 
their Maker, and under the sanctions of his law; 
and in proportion as our consciences are enlight- 
ened and pure and single and devout, open to God's 
truth, will our authority be strong. Three hundred 
and fifty years ago, Martin Luther was summoned 
to the bar of the Roman Church to answer for the 
doctrines he had published. * He came to Worms 
and appeared before the Diet. Called upon to re- 
cant what he had written, he made his defense, and, 



FAITH IN CHRIST. 45 

under peril of his life and liberty, stood up against 
the power of the Roman Church. And when, at 
the close of his defense, he said, " Here I stand. I 
cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen," — 
we feel that he spoke with authority, with the au- 
thority of a devout conscience, obedient to its vis- 
ion of the truth. And such must be our authority. 
We stand under the awful sanctions of God's eter- 
nal law. We know that error and sin, that all 
wrong of thought or act, must be atoned for by 
our or by others' suffering. We know that in truth 
and goodness only does our real life consist. We 
know that we are responsible to God for the minds 
which he has given us, for the truth which he has 
given us power to apprehend ; that we are responsi- 
ble to God for our hearts and spirits, for the life 
which he has given us power to live. Under this 
responsibility we stand, under the responsibility to 
perfect our faith. 

" He that believeth on me, the works that I do 
shall he do also;" that is the sweet fruit of true 
faith in Jesus Christ, that through it we • grow like 
him. It is the same with faith in any one. If we 
know and love a friend, and believe in him, we find 
ourselves, insensibly it may be, yet surely, growing 
like him, moulded, as the poet says, " by silent sym- 
pathy." In proportion as he is worthy of our faith, 
and as our faith in him is perfect, does he act upon 
our hearts, and affect and influence our lives ; and 
so it is with Christ, our friend, our eldest brother, 
" first-born among many brethren." 



46 FAITH IN CHRIST. 

It is one of the bright signs of the times that 
Christendom is searching so diligently into the life 
of Jesus. With the deeper and better knowledge 
of him, which will be the final result of these in- 
quiries, we may safely predict a great revival of 
Christian faith, a great renewing of Christian life. 
There are some who fear this searching and prying 
into the old records, who are afraid that criticism 
will leave nothing to criticise, that a scientific in- 
quest into the foundations of our faith will result 
in a report that no such foundations exist. I trust 
that none of us have such weak faith as that ; that 
we all believe that the more we seek, the more we 
shall find, the more we shall know ; that the better 
we know Jesus, the more we shall love him, the 
more faith we shall have in him, the more we shall 
grow like him. The fruit of a true faith in Jesus 
Christ is that through it we grow like him, like 
him in mind and heart and conscience, like him in 
life and spirit. Like him, we grow into a faith in 
our Heavenly Father, into a trust in God's infinite 
wisdom and love. From him we learn to look on 
every man as our brother, and on mankind as one 
great household, whose head is God. From him 
we apprehend the reality of an eternal world of jus- 
tice and of love, the reality of a life unlimited by 
our frail mortality. From him we learn the infinite 
perfectibility of our spirits, the power given us by 
God to grow into a likeness to himself; the infinite 
perfectibility of mankind, the possibility and the 



FAITH IN CHRIST. 47 

hope of a united humanity, of a universal church, 
of a kingdom of God upon the earth. From him 
we learn to overcome error with truth, despair with 
faith, sin with love ; and from his faith and love, , 
from his great heart and spirit, we draw refresh- 
ment and new strength. 

The fruit of true faith in Christ is to make him 
who has it become Christian, and we have here a 
searching test of the quality and genuineness of 
our Christian faith. " Not every one that saith 
unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom 
of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father 
which is in heaven." We can afford to smile at 
the tests sometimes applied to decide who has faith 
in Christ and who has not, who is a Christian and 
who is not ; but that terrible test of doing the will 
of our Heavenly Father goes to the heart of the 
matter. Living a Christian life, doing the works 
of Christ, following him in his filial obedience to his 
Father's will, — that is the crucial test, as it is the 
blessed fruit, of Christian faith. In proportion as 
that faith is pure and strong within us are we pre- 
pared to enter the kingdom of heaven which may 
come on earth, if only we be fit to enter into it. 

And this applies not only to the faith of the in- 
dividual Christian, but to the collective faith of a 
church. A church, too, must be judged by its 
fruits. When a church guards faithfully the pre- 
cious traditions of the past ; when it fosters Christ- 
ian truth and life ; when its members by their 



48 FAITH IN CHRIST. 

union support each other, and help each other to 
be more Christian men and women ; when its ser- 
vices keep alive and increase holy hopes, affections, 
and aspirations ; when its worship is at once the 
expression and the nourishment of Christian faith ; 
when those who come to it go not away empty, 
but take home with them some increase of Chris- 
tian truth, some increase of Christian life; when 
the poor and the ignorant may look to it with hope ; 
when, in a word, it is continuing the work of Christ, 
and helping all connected with it to live Christian 
lives ; when its collective action is in the cause of 
truth and honesty, of love and humanity, and 
piety, — then we may feel sure that that church 
has faith in Christ, is a true Christian church. 

No shrewd devices, no politic schemes, no ingen- 
ious ecclesiastical machinery, can take the place 
of this faith. Without it, a church is but a sem- 
blance, however politic its organization, however 
great its number, however imposing its outward 
show. With this faith, though only two or three 
be gathered together for common worship and for 
mutual help, there is a true church; for it is this 
faith which is the soul of the church, the original 
and vital source from whence all the churches of 
Christendom have sprung, and which sustains them 
still in health and vigor. 



IMMORTALITY. 



"In hope of eternal life." — Titus i,, 2. 

Our daily lives are chiefly taken up with our 
daily necessities, occupations, and pleasures. The 
struggle for existence, the care of our bodies and 
of other people's bodies, the necessity of sleep 
and restful recreation, attention to the immediate 
interests of ourselves and our neighbors, — these 
and kindred occupations take up the bulk of our 
time. That we may bring to all this work a spirit 
which makes it more than drudgery, is true ; that 
we may take a large and elevating view of our 
daily work, and by putting it in its place, and see- 
ing and feeling its relations with the great move- 
ments of human activity, may give even to our 
little work a certain grandeur and nobility ; that 
we may by the purity and height of our motives 
put something divine into our commonest action, 
is true ; and yet with all these compensations, we 
all know that our daily necessities lie heavy on us. 

And most of us are so overcome with the cares 

7 



50 IMMORTALITY. 

and pressing duties of our lives, that we are seldom 
in tune for thought and meditation upon the higher 
mysteries. "One world at a time" is often our 
thought ; but the saying is more witty than deep, 
for a looking forward into the future world is a 
part of this world, — the fullest present life in- 
cludes- the past and the future. And 

" If our life be life, 
And thought, and will, and love, 
Not vague, unconscious airs 
That o'er wild harp-strings move ; 
If consciousness be aught 
Of all it seems to be, 
And souls be something more 
Than lights which gleam and flee, 
Though dark the road which leads us thither, 
The soul must ask its whence and whither." 

However overcome we may be by our cares, 
there is in all of us, and especially in all those who 
have had experience of sorrow, this questioning 
and forelooking spirit. And there come times in 
the lives of all of us when the thought of the 
future becomes the absorbing thought. In those 
hours when God afflicts us deepest, he sometimes 
sends down to our side to comfort us his bright 
angels of hope and faith; and, listening to their 
whisperings, we cry out in the midst of our afflic- 
tion at our loss, " O God, this is not the end." 

And indeed in all the great crises of our lives, 
whether of sorrow or of joy, when our hearts are 
deepest stirred, weighed down, or lifted up, there is 



IMMORTALITY. 5 1 

within us a certain bursting of our common limita- 
tions, a reaching out of our natures towards some- 
thing larger than our experience, — towards immor- 
tality. 

And though the thought of immortality may not 
seem capable of demonstration — it is the simplest 
things that are easiest proved, — though it may 
belong to those upper mysteries which are beyond 
our sight and knowledge, and only to be appre- 
hended by hope and faith, which alone give us 
glimpses into things unseen, yet our experience is 
not wholly wanting in a kind of inward evidence, — 
in indications which direct, and strengthen, and fix 
our hope, so that it becomes a firm and constant 
faith. 

But let us say it boldly that the hope of immor- 
tality in itself and by itself is a blessed hope. 
Though there were no evidence at all to support it, 
though it dwelt apart and unattended in our hearts, 
though it were a bare hope, no more than a bright 
suspicion in our minds that this might be so, it 
were a blessed hope. Let us say it boldly, the 
hope of immortality is " its own excuse for being." 
If I have it, if the hope is possible to me, that is 
enough to justify it. I would not be ashamed of 
that hope; rather I would still rejoice in it, though 
objections without number should be brought 
against it, though the burden of probabilities and 
proof should seem to be against it. We can 
always say with truth, if we are out-argued by any 



52 IMMORTALITY. 

one in this matter, I surrender my argument, but 
not my hope. That neither you nor any one can 
disprove, for even allowing its positive proof to be 
beyond our power, so, at any rate, is its disproof. 
Where can you, or any one, get such a knowledge 
of the future as to say with authority, " This hope 
is false"? You cannot do it. The hope of immor- 
tality, in itself considered, stands secure, exists by 
its own divine right. As an inward, spiritual fact, 
as a blessed, personal experience, as our consola- 
tion and our strength, it needs no other title to 
existence than its own blessed nature. 

When, therefore, I consider the rational grounds 
for this hope, I do it not so much as an apology 
for the hope itself — it needs no such apology, — but 
rather to make this heavenly hope a familiar guest 
in our hearts, to prepare our minds so that it may 
lodge in them and be at home in them, and we be 
at home with it. 

If the thought of immortality were the thought 
only of an occasional thinker, we might class it 
among the fancies or whims of the human imagina- 
tion; but that is not the case. It is a universal 
thought. Like the thought of God, we find the 
thought of immortality everywhere among men. It 
s not absolutely universal perhaps. There are, 
doubtless, single men to be found who have never 
had a thought of God or immortality, just as there 
are men who have no ear at all for music. There 
may be, perhaps, some tribes of savages so low as 



IMMORTALITY. 53 

to be wholly without thought of God or a future 
life. But, allowing for these exceptions, the thought 
of a future life is a universal thought in some form 
or other, in every age, and in every land, so that, 
like the thought of God, it seems to be a part of 
human nature itself. The human conscience seems 
by its very nature and constitution to be turned in 
that direction ; seems to look forward into the 
future from a kind of inward necessity, and to fix 
its gaze upon the future as though there were 
something there for it to apprehend, as though 
there were a reality there, toward which the con- 
science could not but turn. This consciousness of 
being related with the future is a universal fact of 
human nature, found alike among the civilized and 
the barbarous, expressing itself under the greatest 
diversity of symbols and forms, but found every- 
where. 

And this thought of a future life is not only 
found among all men, but it is found increasingly 
as men develop in mind and conscience and heart. 
It is more universal, more developed, more dis- 
puted, more accepted, more a part of the public 
thought and speculation and belief, in proportion 
as men grow intellectually and spiritually. We 
find the thought in its simple beginnings among 
savage tribes and primitive nations, the children of 
history, and in the minds of children now, — the 
happy hunting-ground of the Indians, the Elysian 
fields of the old Greeks, the heaven which the 



54 IMMORTALITY. 

child pictures to himself. Then, as the human spirit 
develops, the conscience awakens ; it adds to the 
conception ; and, as the mind grows, it fills out and 
enlarges the conception; and, as the heart deepens 
its affections to a love which knows no mortal 
term, it casts out its anchor to lay hold of the 
eternal foundation. Thus is this thought, this con- 
sciousness, this hope of a future life, not only a 
universal fact of our nature, but is an organic part 
of our nature, — it grows with our growth. It 
grows larger and deeper and purer in proportion as 
our natures enlarge and deepen and grow clear. 
It keeps pace with the other developments of the 
human spirit. It is a constant factor in the 
thought, the philosophy, the faith of all nations. 
There are, to be sure, great ebbs and floods in the 
thought and faith of civilized nations. We cannot 
say of anything that it develops by a steady proc- 
ess in the mind of humanity; faith ebbs and flows, 
yet there is a progress in it, and there are certain 
great objects of faith which are never lost sight of, 
to which even in the most sceptical ages men pay 
at least the homage of denial. The future life is 
one of the constant objects of hope and thought 
and faith. Wipe out all thought of that from the 
world's history, and what a blank you would make. 
Now all this does not demonstrate the truth of 
immortality as one can demonstrate a matter of 
mathematics, and yet this general apprehension of 
mankind of a life to come, the universality of this 



IMMORTALITY. 5 5 

apprehension, and the organic connection which it 
has with all our higher life, — all this points the way 
to immortality. We cannot believe that this uni- 
versal sense, that there is something for us in the 
future, is a delusion. We cannot but believe that 
there is a reality which corresponds to this gen- 
eral apprehension and consciousness that we are 
related to the future. The constant recurrence of 
this thought and faith, the universal reiteration of 
it by men of every age and of every land, its 
organic relation with the human spirit, its peculiar 
prominence in the faith of the holiest men, this is 
a cumulative evidence, that we have to do not with 
a fancy, but with a truth, deep-based and broad- 
based in human experience and in the human con- 
science, having for its object a reality, veiled indeed 
from our mortal eyes by clouds of mystery, only to 
be dimly apprehended by us, yet a reality. 

Then, too, there is that evidence which comes to 
us from our inward experience of the effect of this 
faith upon our souls. Robertson, speaking of the 
problem of free-will and necessity, says something 
like this : " I confess myself unable to solve this 
problem speculatively. I cannot understand how I 
can be a free agent, and yet all my acts be in 
accordance with God's eternal providence; and yet, 
though speculatively I cannot harmonize these 
things, I hold the faith that I am a free agent to 
be true, because when I think otherwise, and feel 
that I am but a passive instrument in the hands of 



$6 IMMORTALITY. 

a higher power, my will dies out within me, my 
moral energy grows weak, and my whole spirit 
sick, while the faith that I am a free agent, that 
I am morally responsible, that I am a person, 
strengthens me, braces my soul, and quickens into 
life all my inward energies." I suppose we have 
all of us had experiences something like that. 
And our experience teaches us the same lesson 
with regard to faith in immortality. That, too, 
like the faith that we are persons, free, responsible, 
not pieces of mechanism, — that, too, has a whole- 
some and strengthening effect upon our souls. 
The belief that this earthly life of ours is the sum 
and end-all of our destiny, is not large enough to 
fit our inward needs, does not harmonize with the 
scope and character of our highest thoughts, affec- 
tions, aspirations, and duties. There is a close- 
ness in the atmosphere of this thought which 
stifles aspiration and affection and devotion, which 
confines the conscience, and stunts spiritual growth. 
The belief that we are mere machines of flesh, 
eating, drinking, marrying, and dying, and there 
the end, is not a wholesome belief for our souls. 
The experience of men and nations — our own 
experience, let us say, for I imagine we have all 
had it, or something like it — teaches us that this 
belief that we are nothing but things of flesh, 
sickens our consciences, makes all our higher ener- 
gies grow weak, takes out of us the spirit of 
heroism and devotion and self-sacrifice, narrows 



IMMORTALITY. 57 

the scope of our thoughts and aspirations, and 
dwarfs our actions, knocks away the foundation of 
our religion and morality, and makes everything 
except our present interests and the palpable 
necessities of ourselves and others a hollow unre- 
ality. But the thought of the eternal life, the hope 
and faith that our mortal flesh is not the whole of 
us ; that our higher life, our thought, our love, our 
faith, our aspiration, our consciousness of personal 
existence, and the belief that our fellow-men are 
persons; the thought that our higher life is a 
reality, that there is a truth corresponding to our 
hope and faith ; the thought of the eternal life, of 
the infinite possibilities of our nature, of the infinite 
consequences of our lives and actions, — how that 
braces our spirits, how it expands our thoughts, how 
it quickens our consciences, how it urges us to the 
highest life and action. We are no longer cribbed 
and confined within the close walls of our mortal- 
ity; we stand in the free air, with the boundless 
heavens above us, and are cheered by the warmth 
of God's infinite love. 

We eat bread because we hunger for it, and we 
justify ourselves in eating it because it does us 
good, and sustains and strengthens us. And so we 
believe in the eternal life because there is that 
within us which lays hold of the eternal life, and 
we justify our faith in it because it sustains and 
strengthens our souls, because it is good for us, 
good for the best part of us, because it helps us to 



58 IMMORTALITY. 

be better men ourselves, because it helps us to love 
our neighbors more truly and more deeply, and to 
love God, and to believe in him more. 

We hold it self-evident that we are meant to be 
all that we can be, and that, therefore, the faith 
which enables us to be more than we can be with- 
out it, must have truth in it. From the nature of 
the fruit we judge the root to be sound, and to 
draw its sustenance from the soil of truth. 

And although our common experience seems to 
us too narrow and limited to harmonize with the 
infinite thought of immortality, yet there are not 
wanting in our lives experiences which for the 
moment seem to expand our spirits and our 
thoughts beyond mortal limits. We come back 
again to our narrow limits very soon, perhaps, but 
for the moment we had left them ; we become con- 
scious of possibilities within our nature seldom 
and only partially fulfilled in our experience. 

The beauty and sublimity of nature — God's 
thoughts expressed in the mountain, the plain, the 
river, the sea, the boundless sky, the stars, in the 
flowers, and in the world of living creatures, the 
immensity, the order, the beauty, the power, and 
glory of nature — touch some inner sense in our 
spirits, which our daily experience only partially 
satisfies, suggest to us capabilities, not yet devel- 
oped, of perception and life. The stars may be 
millions of miles away, but we have some part in 
them; the immensity of space passes our imagina- 



IMMORTALITY. 59 

tion and our thought, yet we feel ourselves not 
wholly strangers to its infinitude. When we have 
looked on some new wonder of nature, we feel that 
this scene has called out something from within us 
not known to us before ; that our nature itself has 
become richer through this experience, and hence 
we suspect the possibility of an infinite enlargement 
of our natures. 

And still more vividly, perhaps, are we affected 
in this way by the highest manifestation of human 
genius, the glory of God manifested in the power 
of men. There is some music which has in it 
this heavenly quality, that it stirs something infi- 
nite within us, giving us prophetic hints of possi- 
bilities within our nature which we had not before 
dreamed of. One of our modern poets well 
describes this power of the highest music, when 
he says that those who heard it, "conceived their 
immortality." And there are poems and pictures 
which speak to something mysterious within us, to 
some part of our personality which we know to be 
our deepest, and highest, and best self, our heart 
of hearts, which we know to be a part of ourselves, 
and yet which we hardly recognize as ourselves. 
This interior self, thus at times revealed to us, is a 
prophecy of future possibilities. I have never seen 
the picture, but they say that the picture of the 
Sistine Madonna at Dresden speaks in this way to 
everybody's heart; that all who come to look at it, 
careless sight-seers, people lacking in taste and 



60 IMMORTALITY. 

culture and refinement, rude and coarse, it may be, 
that they all grow silent before that picture, that 
there is in it a mysterious beauty and power which 
touches something hidden in every heart. It is 
the same with the highest poetry, with the highest 
prose, with all large and high and noble thought 
and life, whether it be expressed in word, in art, 
or in action. The response which these things 
awaken in our spirits hints to us possibilities of 
power and of growth beyond anything known to 
our experience. That our fellow-men should be 
capable of such exalted life expands our concep- 
tion of the human personality ; that the commonest 
men can share to some extent in their thought 
and life indicates that we may all be capable of 
endless growth and life. 

And we feel, too, this same sense of a possible 
expansion of our natures to an almost infinite 
extent in the domain of knowledge. The more we 
know, the more we desire to know ; and the more 
we perceive, how boundless is the field of knowl- 
edge, the more our minds grow, the more we per- 
ceive how much further they are capable of growing. 
There is something prophetic in the conquests of 
the human mind, — the far-reaching thoughts of 
great philosophers have brought the stars within 
the compass of our minds, and the earth, and the 
elements. In these conquests of the human mind 
ever space and time we all partake. In the 
onlarging of our range of vision, and of knowl- 



IMMORTALITY. 6 1 

edge, there is a prophecy of intellectual possibili- 
ties in our personality not yet realized. 

It is the same with all the higher parts of our 
nature, — all those parts which are capable of 
growth and expansion, and all those parts which 
reach beyond our individual life and immediate 
interests. Above all, it is in our unselfish love for 
others and in our moral and religious life that we 
find the deepest and strongest evidence of an 
immortal principle within us. Out of pure love for 
another, to sacrifice our own dear wishes, — there is 
something suggestive and prophetic in that. If 
our nature is capable of that (and we know that it 
is capable of it), if we can put ourselves into 
another's place, and out of love for him suffer for 
him, who shall set limits to- the possibilities of the 
human heart ? And when against the shrinkings 
of our flesh and imagination, at the call of duty we 
obey God and sacrifice our ease or safety, we 
become partakers in his infinite and eternal nature. 
In loving God's truth, in obeying it, we become par- 
takers of that eternal truth. In loving God, our 
Father, we become partakers of his infinite nature. 
By faith, by prayer, by communion, by worship, by 
consecration, by doing our duty for his sake, by 
love of him and obedience to his will we lay hold 
of God, we become partakers of his eternal life. 
"This is life eternal to know thee, the only true 
God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." To 
know Jesus Christ, the holiest and most heavenly 



62 IMMORTALITY. 

man whom God has sent into the world, to become 
acquainted with him, to learn of him and receive 
into ourselves the thought and spirit, the truth and 
grace and love which God gave him, and thus to 
rise to the knowledge and the love of God, that is 
eternal life, and in proportion as that holy spirit 
which was in Christ, and which is the highest rev- 
elation of God's spirit granted to us, in proportion 
as we receive into ourselves that Holy Spirit are we 
partakers in the eternal life. 

And the teachings of our inward experiences in 
this matter are enlarged and confirmed by the 
examples of others. If our memories served us 
faithfully, I imagine we could all of us remember 
experiences, great or small, vivid or only slightly 
felt, resembling those I have just spoken of; but in 
the lives of philosophers and heroes and saints, we 
see the same lessons repeated, drawn out in larger 
and brighter characters. The thinkers or the 
poets who included nature and man within their 
thoughts and sympathies, were their minds, their 
genius,, their wonderful personalities made only to 
last a few short years ? And are there not achieve- 
ments still in store for them ? We cannot but 
believe it. And those heroes who for the love of 
their fellow-men, for the love of their country, or 
for those entrusted to their charge, gave up their 
own lives; those brave-hearted men whose story 
sweetens the history of every nation and of every 
neighborhood, — can we believe that it is to their 



IMMORTALITY. 63 

loss that they obeyed the larger, the unselfish love, 
and sacrificed themselves? Not if we believe in 
God as an all-wise, all-loving Father. With that 
belief our faith in immortality is bound up. That 
the largest and highest aspirations, the purest 
affections, the holiest consecration and sejf-sacri- 
fice should end in suffering, we cannot harmonize 
with our conception of God as our Father. We 
cannot think it in accordance with God's love that 
the noblest and holiest souls should through their 
holiest act, through the most God-like action of 
which man is capable — self-sacrifice for love of 
God and man, — should by this holiest act meet 
only death. If there be a God, and if Christ's 
thought be true, and that God be our Father, then 
they who die for his sake, and for their brethren's 
sake, cannot die ; they pass into that larger, higher 
life of which their souls are capable and worthy. 

And thus it is that Jesus Christ, whose mind 
and heart reached out to every human being, and 
who, of all men most truly walked with God, thus 
it is that Jesus Christ, of all who have ever lived 
upon the earth the holiest martyr, is our strongest 
evidence of the eternal life. That such a person 
should through his holiest act, the sacrifice of his 
life for the love of God and man, meet only death, 
we cannot think. That Jesus lives, we cannot but 
believe, and that we and all men have eternal life 
in store for us, we devoutly hope. By what 
mysterious means we may be purged of our sins, 



64 IMMORTALITY. 

what sufferings may be in store for our sins, 
who can tell ? How the desperately perverse and 
sinful are to be redeemed we may not understand ; 
yet we hold the hope in all its breadth "that sin 
can make no wound beyond love's power to heal"; 
" that it is not the will of our Father, our Almighty 
Father, that one of these little ones should perish." 
This blessed hope of immortality, this consoling 
faith in the eternal life, the good Father has given 
to us for our strength and comfort. To bear us up 
under disappointment and trial, to help us "meet 
the dreadful shock of death, he has given us this 
glimpse into the eternal world. The holiest and 
the saintliest of men, those who have risen nearest 
to God, and, most of all, our Saviour, have had this 
faith in largest measure. We lesser and more 
earthly spirits hold to this hope and faith, doubting 
at ' times, and sometimes, it may be, almost stag- 
gered ; but the witness of our deepest experience 
harmonizes with the faith of the saints. "Our 
trust is truer than our fears." That our spirits are 
capable of harboring this hope is itself an indica- 
tion of something more than mortal in us. The 
hope itself in its simplicity unshielded, we need 
feel no shame to hold, — rather thank God that we 
are permitted to hold it. When the waters grow 
dark around us, and the skies grow dark above us, 
let us cast out this anchor into the obscure future, 
trusting in God that it will strike the eternal foun- 
dation of his truth, and will hold. 



COMMUNION OP THE SOUL WITH GOD. 



Religion is the relation of the human soul with 
God. All religion proceeds from the consciousness 
in the soul of a power not itself with which it is 
related. All the different religions are so many 
several embodiments of this religious conscious- 
ness of men. According as this inner conscious- 
ness varies, so does its outward embodiment and 
expression vary. The vast variety of religious 
faiths and practices testify to the countless varia- 
tions of this religious consciousness in different 
men; on the other hand, certain broad features of 
likeness, and a certain logic and method inside all 
the variations, testify to a kind of unity of all relig- 
ions, and to an inward relationship between them 
all. The variations arise from the various races 
and individuals, out of whose religious conscious- 
ness the different religions have sprung; the unity 
and relationship inside all the variations spring 
from the common humanity, the common human 
nature, of all races and all individuals. We may 



66 COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 

take a comparison from the human face. No one's 
face is exactly like another's; every individual 
varies from every other; yet amid this variety, we 
see a marked unity of feature in the likeness of 
families, of neighborhoods, of nations, of races, and 
a wider unity in the universal likeness of the 
human race. Not one individual but varies from 
all the rest; not one but is like all the rest, and 
related with all; on the one hand, a universal 
variety, and on the other, a universal unity, and 
relationship. So it is with all things human, in- 
cluding religion. In calling religion human, I do 
not mean to say that it is not divine, but merely to 
state the evident truism that man's religion is at 
any rate human, whatever else it may be. 

The comparative history of religions teaches us 
that the religious consciousness has varied through 
the whole range of human nature. It has allied 
itself at different times with every part of our 
nature from the lowest to the highest, — the senses, 
the passions, the imagination, the thought, the will. 
It has occupied every corner of the human heart. 
It has been a terror, a doubt, a despair, an intoxica- 
tion, a madness; a hope, a faith, a joy, an aspira- 
tion,, a consecration, a divine communion. It may 
be that there have been men of such large experi- 
ence as to have gone through in their own hearts 
almost this whole range of religious consciousness ; 
who have been well-nigh brutes, to begin with; 
who have waked first to a faint consciousness of 



COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 67 

self, and of a being other than self; who have felt 
the terror of this other being, in sickness, storm, or 
danger, and his bounty in the sunshine, and in the 
fruits of the earth ; who have wakened further to 
the consciousness of harmony and beauty; of right, 
and wrong, and of duty; of will, and love; to the 
hope of the immortal life; to the faith in the 
reality of God and of his Fatherhood; and to a 
consecration of self to him, and a community of 
life with him, in the fellowship of his Holy Spirit. 
Such men may have been, whose personal experi- 
ence has thus stretched from the brute animal up 
to God himself, whose personal experience, if only 
it were spread out fully before us, would show in 
outline all the main features of religious conscious- 
ness which we see drawn out in larger characters 
in the different religions of mankind. And taking 
our own experience even, including that of our 
childhood, we find a hint of it all there. , The 
grisly idols of which we see the pictures, what are 
they but the full development in imagination and 
outward form of the terrors, and shudderings, and 
bad dreams which we have all had ? What are 
sacrifices but the development into systematic cus- 
tom and solemn act of our awe before the power 
above us, or our gratitude for the gifts of his 
bounty ? All the religions of the world are related 
with our nature and experience. And as the low- 
est cannibal savage, and the holiest Christian saint, 
along with the great sweep of difference between 



68 COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 

them, have yet a community and likeness of nature, 
in that they are both men, so has the most abom- 
inable religion that has ever been upon the earth a 
relationship with the holiest possible to man, since 
both grow, humanly speaking, out of the conscious- 
ness of God in the human soul. The various relig- 
ions of the world are the various forms of relation- 
ship between the human soul and the being on 
whom the soul depends. 

Some such relationship there must be. No one 
but a madman can think himself self-derived and 
self-dependent. If any man should think so, his 
death would soon prove to his neighbors, if not to 
himself, that he had made a mistake. In that 
sense certainly, no man can be an atheist ; that is, 
no man can think himself self-derived, self-existent, 
self-dependent, and self-sufficing ; but, on the con- 
trary, he must believe himself to exist through 
some power or being not himself, on which he 
depends. Birth and death force this upon our 
consciousness. It is the consciousness, or thought, 
or faith which a man has of that power not himself 
from which he is derived which makes him a relig- 
ious being. 

This established, it is evident that the character 
of the relation between the human soul and the 
being on whom the soul depends will be condi- 
tioned by the character of the religious conscious- 
ness which, on the human side, is the bond of rela- 
tionship. If my soul's consciousness of that being 



COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 69 

be a mere vague and glimmering apprehension of a 
power greater than myself, it will manifest itself by 
a kind of trembling of the soul when some event — 
sickness, danger, or the sight of death — startles 
me into a recognition of my dependence and self- 
insufficiency. If fancy mingle in my religious con- 
sciousness, my relation with the being on whom I 
depend will be different. Then I may apprehend 
not one power controlling me, but many, the good 
and evil influences of nature. Then my commerce 
with the divine will be nature-worship, with all its 
manifold variety of service. Poetry, painting, 
sculpture, sacrifices, temples, will be demanded by 
this consciousness. Every form of nature will 
have its peculiar service and ritual. Hence the 
richness of polytheistic worship, as seen in its high- 
est grace and beauty in ancient Greece, and in 
strange but impressive forms in India, Egypt, and 
other countries. 

These instances of the more primitive, and what 
we may call instinctive, religious motives illustrate 
the fact that the character of the relation between 
man's soul and the power controlling him depends, 
on the human side, upon the character of this 
religious consciousness. We may see the diversity 
of relationship still further exemplified if we look 
at some religions which contain more reflection 
and speculation, which are more developed than the 
instinctive religions. Such religions are many of 
them called philosophies, but they are properly 



JO COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 

religions, for the essential nature of religion lies in 
its being the relation between the human soul and 
the power controlling it. Hence all philosophies 
of the universe are a kind of religion. If then we 
regard the power on which we depend as chance, 
or force and matter, we are materialists. That 
power is not then a power above us, but below us. 
We must look down on it, even while we recognize 
that we are dependent on it. Our materialism 
gives the human side of our relation with the power 
controlling us ; and that relation is evidently con- 
ditioned by the character of this consciousness. 
That is, if chance, or force and matter, be my God, 
then the relation of my soul with him, or it, will 
be conditioned by the nature of these objects. The 
nature of our communion with the Unseen will be 
conditioned by our conception of what the Unseen 
is. Our communion, or relation, with chance, or 
with force and matter, cannot be higher than these 
objects. 

In some forms of pantheism, however, we ap- 
proach a kind of communion with the divine. Thus 
one common form of pantheism is the conception 
of the being on whom we depend as the one un- 
conscious All, unconscious nature, the universal 
being, living, but in itself unconscious, developing 
into partial consciousness in the animate creation, 
and in man ; developing its life unceasingly, accord- 
ing to an inward method, yet unconsciously; the 
depth of being, circling upward, upward, upward, 



COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. J\ 

till suddenly it wakes into conscious intelligence in 
man. Man looks around him for a few years, lives 
his life, and thinks his thoughts, and then down he 
goes, — his light is quenched in the eternal depths of 
unconscious nature. But though his reign is short, 
yet while it lasts, he, according to this pantheism, 
is lord and emperor of the universe. He is not 
indeed self -derived, or self-dependent, — far from it; 
but the being by which he exists, though it holds 
him in its hands, is yet beneath him ; as long as it 
lets him think, he is as much superior to it as con- 
scious intelligence is to unconsciousness. This 
will indicate the limits of pantheistic communion 
with the divine. It is not the communion of the 
spirit, the personal communion of thought, of love, 
of conscious united life, yet it is real after its kind. 
We have all of us experienced something like it, 
especially in times of weariness. We get a hint of 
it in that natural rest, that kind of conscious sleep, 
which our natures crave after struggle and labor ; 
when to our tired spirits the striving of humanity, 
love, hate, hope, faith, and effort seem all a dream, 
when we go out into open nature, and refresh our 
souls with her repose, and with her life, and beauty, 
and fulness, and immensity. This is a true though 
partial consciousness. We are intimately related 
with material nature. The dust of the earth is 
what our bodies are made of and sustained by. I 
do not quarrel with the pantheistic consciousness, 
as far as it is a consciousness of relationship with 



72 COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 

material nature. That is not its fault, but that 
it stops there is its fault, that it ignores the per- 
sonal life, and puts an extinguisher upon personal 
thought, love, and will, in that it says not nature 
and God, but nature and no more. Hence the 
communion of the pantheistic consciousness can 
only be a communion with nature conceived as 
the unconscious All, not with the Father of our 
spirits. 

We see another partial consciousness of God in 
the religion of solitary ascetics. In a cell or cave, 
or in the desert, the solitary soul alone with God ; 
no sight or sound of nature to distract him, no 
human creature near him to excite any thought, or 
affection, or care; the soul alone with God, — such is 
the communion which springs from this kind of 
consciousness. But is not this the highest com- 
munion with God ? No, for in excluding Nature 
and man from our communion, we exclude God 
himself, in so far as He is in nature and man. 
Solitary thought and prayer is an essential part of 
the religious life ; the fault of the hermit and 
ascetic is that he makes this part the whole, and so 
fails of a full communion with the Father, for he is 
the Father not of our single souls only, but of all 
humanity, and of all creation ; and if we would seek 
to know him fully, we must not alone commune 
with him in the depths of our own hearts, but 
must seek him also in others' hearts, and in the 
world which he has made. 



COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 73 

These instances of some of the lower relations of 
the soul with the power controlling it, and of some 
of the partial forms of communion with Nature and 
God, illustrate some of the conditions of man's 
religious life, and lead us naturally to the consider- 
ation of the highest and fullest communion known 
to our experience or thought, — the communion of 
the personal human soul with the personal God. 
This communion springs from the consciousness 
in us of our oneness with nature, man, and God, 
and from our consciousness of God as the Original, 
Intelligent, Personal, Holy, and All-loving One, in 
his perfection transcendent above nature and man, 
yet including nature and man within himself, and 
in them immanent and shadowed forth, the Increate 
and Everlasting Father. 

And now that we stand upon the threshold of 
this central mystery of religious thought, we be- 
come conscious of a failing of our strength, and a 
baffling of our vision ; and it must be so. Do 
what we will, turn the matter over as we will, 
there must yet remain a mystery which we can 
only partially explore. The subject is in its very 
nature only partially within the reach of our expe- 
rience and thought, and we can hardly do justice 
even to that which is within our reach. Though 
to our listening minds the harmonious notes are as 
firm and true as our other experience, yet they are 
most difficult to catch and fix. Our religious expe- 
rience shares in the infinite and mysterious nature 



74 COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 

of the objects with which it unites us. It is just 
our deepest life which is hardest fitly to express. 
I can only hope to draw certain lines which our 
own thoughts and memories must fill out, to set 
forth certain truths of our experience and thought 
which seem to me to involve the mysteries with 
which we have to do. 

Communion of the soul with God, the prayer of 
man to God, the finite related with the Infinite, how 
is that possible ? For the Infinite must include all 
existence ; where, then, is there room for any finite ? 
The existence of the finite would limit the Infinite, 
that is, limit the unlimited, which is an absurdity. 
If, then, the unlimited, the Infinite, exist, the finite 
(which would limit it) cannot exist, much less any 
relation between the finite and Infinite, such as 
prayer or communion. I confess that I am unable 
to answer this question on its own ground, nor do 
I think it can be answered, on the ground of formal, 
a priori logic. Its power is indeed artificially 
heightened to our imagination by its mathematical 
form. It grasps the universal all — God, man, na- 
ture, and eternity — in one universal, fixed, indivis- 
ible formula, the Infinite, which necessarily extin- 
guishes everything particular and finite. But we 
are not dealing with a matter of space or time, of 
measurement or dimension, of mathematics or me- 
chanics. We are dealing with real and personal 
existence, which is more mysterious than mathe- 
matics ; and yet, after all, the perplexity involved 



COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 75 

in this question remains. How can I have any ex- 
istence in any way whatever distinct from God, the 
universal being? Here we find ourselves confront- 
ing the two mysteries of existence and free-will. 
A priori existence is inconceivable to me ; a poste- 
riori existence is a certainty to me. That is, when 
a priori, apart from my consciousness and experi- 
ence, I try to think why anything should exist, why 
God should exist, or matter, or why I should exist, 
or how anything can exist, my thought is baffled, — 
existence is utterly inconceivable to me. But when, 
a posteriori, I regard my consciousness of my own 
existence, and my experience and observation of 
other existences not myself, I am, and cannot help 
being, certain of the reality of existence. The why 
of existence, then, is beyond our minds ; the fact of 
existence is witnessed, beyond doubt, by our minds. 
My consciousness declares me to exist, and to exist 
as a finite being, limited to a certain place and 
time, and limited by other existences. This ques- 
tion, then, How can the finite exist, since its exist- 
ence would limit the infinite ? I cannot directly 
answer. I can only appeal to the undeniable testi- 
mony of consciousness, and say the finite does exist. 
The why is beyond us, but the fact remains ; nor 
can a known and undeniable fact of consciousness 
be overthrown by our inability to give the reason 
for it. That inability marks one of the present 
limits of human thought. I will not say a final 
limit, for who is competent to say that ? but a pres- 



y6 COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 

ent limit. It is the reverse of the scientific method 
to argue from the only partially apprehended infin- 
ite against the exact knowledge which our con- 
sciousness gives us of the finite. This perplexity, 
then, of the impossibility of prayer and communion 
with God, because it is impossible for us to exist as 
finite beings, I meet, as far as I am able to meet it, 
with the undeniable evidence of our consciousness 
that we do exist as finite beings. The second ques- 
tion, of free-will, comes more properly under an- 
other head, under which I will consider it. 

Another perplexity about communion and prayer, 
near akin to what we have been considering, arises 
from the invariability of nature and of Providence. 
First, as to material nature. Is our prayer, our 
communion with God, in any way related with ma- 
terial nature ? Can I, by faith in God and com- 
munion of spirit with him, affect the course of 
material nature ? There is a very wide belief that 
prayer has nothing to do with material nature, nor 
can in any way affect the course of physical phe- 
nomena. I do not think it at all settled that this 
severing of our human nature, of our prayer and 
will, from material nature and phenomena, is true 
to the fact. What we call the laws of nature mean 
strictly our recognition of the general course of 
nature, based on our experience and observation ; 
but our observation is necessarily partial, and in 
this matter it is by no means clear that it is uncon- 
tradicted. There can be no doubt that our souls 



COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. *]*] 

are very intimately related through our bodies with 
material nature ; the question is, then, whether the 
human soul, strengthened by faith, and in com- 
munion with God, may not control material nature 
to a degree beyond all ordinary experience ? " If 
ye have faith," says Jesus, "as a grain of mustard- 
seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove 
hence to yonder place ; and it shall remove ; and 
nothing shall be impossible to you." Mohammed, 
it is said, tried to move a mountain by faith, and, I 
imagine, was fully persuaded, when he ordered it 
to move, that it would move. Why, then, if he 
were fully convinced in his own mind, did not the 
mountain move, if Christ's thought be true ? The 
question seems fair r if self-confidence be faith; if 
faith be a thing between one's self and one's self ; 
but is that faith ? In the story of the Temptation, 
Satan bids Jesus throw himself from the pinnacle 
of the temple, quoting a good text of Scripture to 
his purpose; but Jesus says, "Thou shalt not tempt 
the Lord thy God." Which was faith ? the confi- 
dence which Satan counselled, or the refusal of 
Jesus ? Faith is not a thing between one's self and 
one's self, not self-confidence, but between one's 
self and God, God-confidence, if I may use the ex- 
pression. It is at once the true vision of God's 
will and purpose, and the action of our hearts 
toward fulfilling it. Thus to remove a mountain 
by faith, we must not only be fully persuaded that 
we can move it, for that may be, and probably 



y8 COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 

would be, an illusion; but we must see, and see 
truly, that it is in God's will, and purpose, and to 
his glory, that it be removed, and then bend our 
whole souls to removing it. These conditions 
never have, and probably never will exist; so that 
these words of Jesus about removing a mountain 
are practically a figure, meaning that where the 
true vision of God's will, and the devout effort to 
obey it, that is, where real faith, exist, its effect can 
be limited only by its own inherent power. Is it 
possible, then, for any faith to be true, to be other 
than illusion, when it attempts to influence physi- 
cal phenomena by direct prayer ? I do not think 
that we have positive evidence of any experience 
that can prove this view ; at the same time, I do 
not think our present state of science warrants us 
in affirming the contrary. There is a whole de- 
partment of human experience — namely, the mirac- 
ulous, the border-land between the material and 
super-material, or spiritual, world, about which we 
are very much in the dark — which warns us not to 
be too dogmatic in our affirmations about the laws 
of nature. On the other hand, is it not, as far as 
we can see, a part of God's will that physical phe- 
nomena should follow each other by an inward 
method impenetrable and uncontrollable by the 
human will, except through the exertion of physi- 
cal strength ? Almost all, if not all, of our expe- 
rience and observation points that way, and forbids 
us to affirm the contrary. So we must waver be- 



COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 79 

tween these two possibilities until a more perfect 
knowledge solves the difficulty ; trusting, mean- 
while, to the natural action of our souls which we 
ought not dogmatically to limit except upon exact 
knowledge which here does not exist. To take an 
instance : have we a right to pray for rain ? In 
desperate circumstances, when, as sometimes hap- 
pens in hot countries, it is rain or death, the human 
heart cries out for rain. Will any such prayer have 
any effect in bringing rain ? We cannot tell. We 
may say no, but that does not settle it ; or yes, but 
that does not settle it. Only the truth, the reality, 
can settle it, and that we do not know at present. 
All such prayers are justifiable where they are 
natural. We are right, in any case of doubt, to 
follow our instinctive desire and sympathy, to pray, 
if we can; and by praying I mean to move with all 
the strength of our natures towards the accomplish- 
ment of our need, using all our powers of body — 
so far every one would go with me in thought, — 
and all our powers of soul ; also our hope, our faith, 
our supplication to the Being above us. Are not 
these real powers ? I believe they are, and by what 
right any one can limit their possible operation I 
cannot understand. 

Praying for rain is an instance of prayer, or 
communion with God, in its relations with material 
nature; pure and simple. Prayer, or communion 
with God, as relating us with man, is another point 
for us to consider ; and between these two points 



80 COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 

lie a multitude of mixed cases. Thus the prayer 
for our daily bread not only connects us with ma- 
terial nature, but with man. Our getting our daily 
bread depends, under God, on material nature, and 
on human nature. No soil, sunshine, or rain, then 
no bread ; and no industry, good-will, honesty, or 
social order, then no bread, even if nature do her 
part. Our prayer for daily bread includes the 
recognition of God as the sustainer of our bodies, 
and a petition that nature keep her constancy, 
and man his virtue, that we may live and not die. 
As far as it relates to material nature, it comes 
under the head we have been considering ; as far 
as it relates to man, it offers us a new question. 
What is the extent and what the limit of our rela- 
tion through prayer with our fellow-men ? Can 
we be really related with our fellow-men through 
prayer and communion with God ? That we are 
intimately related with our fellow-men is a plain 
fact of experience ; we affect them, and they us ; 
by word, by act, by writing, and in other ways. A 
thought written down by Plato in Athens can 
move me, after two thousand years have passed, to 
laughter or to tears. The thought of Hebrew 
law-givers, prophets, psalmists, and of that chiefest 
Hebrew who founded our religion, affects and 
colors the inward life of whole nations and conti- 
nents up to this day. This is a fact of observation 
which cannot be denied by any one acquainted 
with the subject The question for us is, then, 



COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 8 1 

Can we influence our fellow-men directly through 
prayer and communion with God, beyond and out- 
side of those channels and organs of communica- 
tion known to our ordinary experience, such as 
speech, act, writing, tradition, and so on ? Can we, 
for instance, affect by our prayer and communion 
with God one parted by distance or by death from 
us ? That is another of those questions which 
show us the present limits of our religious thought. 
We cannot tell. I know of no established facts 
which can prove the affirmative of this ; on the 
other hand, we have not the knowledge requisite 
to deny it authoritatively. In our present state 
of knowledge, our minds must waver as to the 
possibility of such influence. Practically we are 
right in hoping and believing, if such faith be 
possible for us, that we may so influence the dis- 
tant and departed by our prayer and communion 
with God ; for it is a true sympathy in us which 
goes out towards them, and a true hope, and that 
in the absence of knowledge ought to guide us. 
We have no right dogmatically to limit the scope 
of our prayer except upon exact knowledge. Our 
prayer is naturally and rightly coextensive with 
our desire and sympathy, is our sympathy deep- 
ened, heightened, and strengthened by the con- 
scious power and effort of our hearts turned 
towards God. 

And now we must approach that great mystery 
which we cannot avoid except by wilfully ignoring 



82 COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 

it, — the problem of free-will and Providence. If 
God order all things well, and in him there be no 
variableness, neither shadow of turning, and if his 
Providence be over all and include all, even our- 
selves, what room is there for my prayer ? How 
can I affect Providence, how can I affect myself, 
who am a part of Providence ? how can my prayer 
be other than an illusion, in which Providence 
impels me, and determines my every thought and 
act, yet inspires me with a delusive sense of free, 
responsible life ? How can there be an absolute 
Providence, foreseeing and foreordaining all things, 
and yet my soul be free, within certain limits, to 
do right or wrong, free to determine itself ? We 
are not absolutely free, we have not the power of 
indifferent choice, for the eternal reality and right 
exists, and every time we err or sin, we strike our 
heads against the everlasting truth ; and every time 
we think we do right, we are upheld by the same 
everlasting power; there is that tremendous bal- 
ance on the side of truth and right. But the 
question is, Have we any freedom of choice at all? 
any power at all to determine ourselves? The 
dilemma of Providence and free-will is not deter- 
mined by the quantity of choice ; if we think we 
have the least possible quantity of power to deter- 
mine ourselves, then this dilemma is forced upon 
us. Is there any way of overthrowing the dilemma, 
and saving both parts of it ? Can we affirm the exist- 
ence of an all-foreseeing, foreordaining, all-inclusive 



COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 83 

Providence, a Providence including us and every part 
of us, every minutest motion of our bodies, minds, and 
hearts, and at the same time affirm any freedom of 
moral choice in us ? I do not see how we can recon- 
cile these two thoughts. What, then, shall we think 
about it ? Must we give up or modify our idea of 
Providence ? or must we give up our free souls, 
and regard all our life as a foreordained and abso- 
lutely fixed development, and all our varying expe- 
rience, our hope, and fear, and sense of sin, and 
remorse, and prayer, and action, and aspiration, as 
the mere light and shade, and variegation of our 
life's scroll as it is unrolled by the Almighty's 
hand ? The question is between our conception of 
Providence as an absolutely fixed predetermination, 
and our free-will. On the side of free-will, we 
have the witness of our consciousness to our free 
and personal nature, the sense of duty, the sense 
of sin, the joy of conscious well-doing, the aspira- 
tion and prayer for love and holiness ; in a word, 
our conscience and our personality testify to us 
that we are free agents, and not mere instruments 
in the hands of a higher power. To deny our 
free-will, we must deny the integrity of our con- 
sciousness, and the truth of our experience, of our 
deepest and highest experience. On the other 
hand, we have the thought that perfection demands 
that God should absolutely include all things in 
himself, either potentially or actually. But this 
thought, that the existence of any free personal 



84 COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 

being other than God is a diminution of his per- 
fection and glory, seems a doubtful one. There 
is something terribly mechanical in this view of 
Providence as an absolute predetermination ; and 
between that conception, and the conception of 
God as endowing his children with something of 
his own free and personal nature, we cannot but 
choose the latter as the more divine conception. 
At any rate, between the plain witness of our con- 
sciousness, that we are free agents, responsible 
beings, and an a priori speculation about the nature 
of Providence, which we can at most only partially 
apprehend, I think we are bound to accept the 
witness of our consciousness. We may be justi- 
fied in affirming the apparent contradiction of an 
absolutely foreseeing and foreordaining Providence 
and the existence of free-will in man, trusting that 
this contradiction will be harmonized by a fuller 
knowledge. But, at any rate, by every rule of 
scientific method, we are bound to recognize the 
constant witness of our consciousness. And may 
we not thus conceive the relations of the human 
soul with God, that we are the children of God, in 
a very essential sense, that God gives man some- 
thing of his own original freedom and personality, 
that as he is the first and infinite cause, and the 
original person, so are we second and finite causes, 
and derived persons ? This is hard to believe, but 
no harder than to believe that God himself exists, 
or that anything exists which, as I have said, is 



COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 85 

inconceivable a priori, though certain through our 
experience and consciousness. And this concep- 
tion seems to me to be the Christian conception of 
God and man, — God the Father, man his child. 

It is on this consciousness and faith of the essen- 
tial oneness of our nature with God, and the possi- 
bility of our drawing ever nearer to his infinite 
perfection, that our communion with God rests. 

Let us consider some of the indications and 
modes of this communion. Beyond those self- 
regarding functions which are necessary to our 
individual life, we find in ourselves tendencies and 
aspirations stretching outward and upward to a 
larger life. We see this in a degree in our common 
experience. Jesus says that the love of one's 
neighbor, and one's self is like unto the love of 
God. When, unsatisfied with the mere preserva- 
tion of our bodies, we become conscious of the 
worth of our human nature, and of the precious- 
ness of our various powers, and out of love for our- 
selves seek to develop ourselves, and to become 
better men, there is in that desire for personal 
perfection a kind of largeness and loftiness bor- 
dering on the religious. The effort toward the 
harmonious development of all our powers brings 
us into universal relations. In all effort after self- 
perfection, we see a kind of motion toward com- 
munion with God, a striving to lift one's self above 
one's self to a higher life. This self-love and self- 
culture become distinctly religious, when we regard 



86 COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 

ourselves as the children of God, and our natures 
as his gift, and every new development of our 
nature as glorifying him by fulfilling his purpose, — 
when we seek to be perfect as God is perfect. 

We see this larger life more plainly, however, 
more clearly hinting at communion with God, in 
the love of others. We see it most familiarly in 
our domestic life. Why does one member of a 
family work, watch, and endure for the rest of the 
family, flinching neither from pain nor the danger 
of 'death in serving it ? It is because his life is as 
large as that. There is the consciousness of his 
kindred abiding in his heart, and inspiring him. If 
to the written annals of human history were added 
its unwritten story, what a sweetness of unselfish 
devotion, of hidden and pure service, would rise 
from the home-life of humanity ! What a multi- 
tude of patient martyrs would be added to the 
saintly roll ! Not in vain their service, but for the 
health of their souls, and of those whom they have 
served. Their virtue it is which keeps society 
together, and makes possible the triumphs of hu- 
manity. And we see this love of our neighbor 
grown to a broader and diviner spirit in the patriot, 
who in war or peace carries the unselfish conscious- 
ness of his country in his heart. Not in vain the 
patriot's prayer and effort, though his name be 
known to few, for the sacred spirit which is in him 
alone saves and carries forward the nation. And 
we see it also in the Christian, who is a Christian 






COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 8 1 / 

indeed. Whence comes the zeal of this man ? 
What motive has he ? Why does he act as he 
does ? To some it is foolishness, to others mad- 
ness ; to those only is his action clear who see the 
consciousness of Christ's great household present 
in his heart ; hence his labor, not in vain, though 
he live and die obscure. Happy is he in his faith- 
ful service, helping forward the work at his post, 
and rejoicing in that larger life, in his fellowship 
with the servants of God. And that human relig- 
ious fellowship, which is most like the divine com- 
munion, includes the love of all humanity, past, 
present, and to come, sinners and saints, infidels and 
believers, enemies and friends, for nothing less can 
the Christian fellowship aim at without being faith- 
less to the master. 

These are instances of those human relations, 
that love of ourselves and our neighbors, which, as 
Jesus says, are like unto our divine relations, our 
love of God. And these human relations lead us 
up to heaven's door. The ties of family, of coun- 
try, of church, and the rest, make us partakers of 
the strength of those with whom we are united. 
In all these relations by as much as we give to our 
fellow-men thus associated with us, we receive from 
them. Through word, act, institution, book, law, 
usage, through common study, worship, and action, 
we receive into ourselves the strength of others, 
and with them mount to a higher life. 

But our aspirations are not fully satisfied with 



55 COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 

this earthly fellowship. We cannot rest in. that. 
We seek to know the truth that we may help our- 
selves and our neighbors — that is the human love 
of truth, — but we cannot stop there. A more 
absolute desire fills us to know the truth as it is, — 
the truth of God ; not only that we may bless our- 
selves and our neighbors with it, but for its own 
sake, as the truth of God. That is the divine love 
of truth. We see how nearly related this human 
and this divine love are. A man thinks and studies 
that he may help his own and his neighbors' 
doubts, and enlighten himself and them ; but in that 
study he finds a being, a reality, a truth, which is 
not himself, or his fellow-man ; his desire expands, 
he feels a new prompting, he seeks the truth for 
its own sake, the truth of God. And again, in 
our moral life, we seek to live according to the law 
of our own natures, and to the law of righteous- 
ness, resulting from our relations with our fellow- 
men, — that is the human love of righteousness, 
approaching the divine ; but there stirs in us a 
higher desire, a desire for holiness, for absolute 
perfection, to live according to the law of God, — 
that is the divine love of righteousness. And 
again, we love ourselves and our fellow-men; our 
hearts desire a conscious unity of life, a personal 
unity in ourselves, and a larger unity in the love 
of others — that is the human love, — but we can- 
not stop there ; there is a fulness of life beyond 
our human fellowship towards which our natures 



COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 89 

reach. They seek a conscious unity with the life 
of God. 

These are instances of our religious aspiration. 
What can satisfy our love of truth ? Can we draw 
any limit to that aspiration ? We can draw no 
limit ; nothing but the universal truth can satisfy 
it. What can satisfy our love of holiness ? Can 
we draw any limit to that ? No, we can draw no 
limit. Nothing but the universal holiness, the 
absolute perfection, can satisfy it. And our love, 
that which we name love with no addition, our per- 
sonal fellowship of united life, we can draw no limit 
to the reach of that. The universal life and love 
alone can fill it. 

But these aspirations are only different phases of 
the same personal life. My aspiration after the 
truth means really myself aspiring after the truth. 
My aspiration after holiness means really myself 
aspiring after holiness ; and so of love. These aspi- 
rations have no real existence apart from me. 
They are myself, my personality, exercising differ- 
ent functions, myself in my supreme relations. 
And so of this universal truth, holiness, and life, 
after which I aspire. What is truth ? It is the 
quality of real existence. What is holiness ? The 
quality of perfectly directed personal life. What 
love? The quality or state of united life. Truth, 
holiness, love, these are all qualities, not substances. 
There can be no truth apart from real existence, 
nor holiness, nor love, apart from personal exist- 



go COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 

ence. In aspiring after the universal truth, holi- 
ness, and love, we aspire after the living, personal 
God, and we approach him, and commune with 
him, in proportion as we attain to the true, holy, 
and loving life. As Jesus says, "Thou shalt love 
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and 
strength, and mind," — with all thy nature; and 
by as much as we love him, we approach him and 
commune with him. 

These aspirations after God draw us to him, and 
witness to our relationship with him ; and if we 
consult our inward experience, we find another 
kind of facts opposite to our aspirations, yet 
inwardly related with them, — the facts of sin, of 
conscious wrong-doing. What is sin ? It is the 
disregard of our own souls, of man, and of God, 
by ns. We may sin from selfishness, as when a 
man cheats another man to enrich himself, disre- 
garding his neighbor, his own soul, and his God. 
We may sin from affection for others, as when a 
man cheats another to enrich his wife and children, 
disregarding his own soul, his neighbor, and his 
God. Or we may sin out of a wrong affection for 
God, as when a man lies to his neighbor about 
religion for God's sake, hoping to help God's 
earthly kingdom by his lying, and so disregards 
his neighbor, his own soul, and the holy spirit 
prompting him to truth. As the holy life is the 
regard, or in its highest degree the love, of our 
own souls, of man, and of God, so the sinful life 



COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 9 1 

is the disregard, and in its fiercest degree the 
hatred, of our own souls, of man, and of God. Our 
memories and consciences bear witness enough to 
the existence of sin in all of us. What does this 
fact of sin in us mean? Is it merely being apart 
from God and man, unrelated with them ? No, it 
is the dis-uniting of that which is related; it is dis- 
union from God and man. Our repentant thoughts 
are so many voices calling to us, " You have broken 
the bond and covenant which bound you to your 
Father and your brethren. Go back and be re- 
united with them." So the witness of sin and 
of repentance echoes the witness of our holy 
aspiration, and declares our relationship with the 
Father. 

The Christian consciousness is the. conscious- 
ness of our essential oneness with God and man. 
That is the life present to our hope and prayer ; 
but along with that Christian consciousness we 
have another, — the consciousness of our actual con- 
dition ; and between that eternal life at one with 
God, and our actual inner state, there is great 
disparity. By prayer and effort we seek to make 
these two things one. By faith in ourselves as the 
children of God, in our fellow-men as our brethren, 
in Christ as our eldest brother, and in God as our 
Father, we seek to rise into that eternal life. By 
our personal prayer and effort, by the help of holier 
brethren, of prophets, poets, saints, and inspired 
men, by all the institutions organized for righteous 



92 COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 

ends, by common prayer, and worship, and action, 
in a word, by all human helps, and by the help of 
God, we seek the eternal life, which is oneness of 
life with God and all his creatures ; we seek to 
receive His nature into ours, and to bring our 
discordant being into harmony with his perfection. 
His presence, like the sun, drives out the evil- 
doers from our hearts, and quickens us to renewed 
life. Francis Bacon in one of his essays figures 
well this power of faith in God upon our natures. 
"Take an example," he says, " of a dog, and mark 
what a generosity and courage he will put on when 
he finds himself maintained by a man ; who to him 
is instead of a God, or melior natura ; which cour- 
age is manifestly such as that creature, without 
that confidence of- a better nature than his own, 
could never attain. So man, when he resteth and 
assureth himself upon divine protection and favor, 
gathereth a force and faith, which human nature in 
itself could not obtain." 

This communion, this oneness with God, towards 
which our prayer tends, our human mortal nature 
attains only in a faint degree. To most of us it 
is a reality rather to our thought and hope than 
in fulfilment ; yet there are not wanting in our 
experience times of resignation, of conquest over 
temptation, of devotion to truth and duty, of self- 
sacrifice, of forgiveness of those who have injured 
us, of rejoicing in God's work and will, when our 
hearts lean upon no human arm, but on the ever- 



COMMUNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. 93 

lasting. Most of us are most vividly conscious of 
God's presence with us, in our struggle with temp- 
tation, and in our resignation under trial. When 
we pray " Thy will be done," it is most frequently 
with the thought that the evil in us may be sub- 
dued, or our hearts resigned. But there is a higher 
consciousness than that, — to pray rejoicingly that 
God's will may be done. In some rare moments 
in our own experience, in the lives of holier men, 
and above all in Jesus Christ, we see this rejoicing 
in the life of God, a conscious oneness of life with 
him. Thy will, thy glorious will, be done, sings 
the rejoicing heart. In the Gospel of Matthew, 
Jesus says, " I thank thee, O Father, Lord of 
heaven and earth, . . . for so it seemed good in 
thy sight." That glad oneness of life with God, 
and delight in his work, that is the communion 
with him towards which our prayers tend, that the 
eternal life which by God's grace we hope may be 
revealed in us. 



FAITHFULNESS. 



" And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax 
cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be 
saved." — Matt, xxiv., 12, 13. 

" And because iniquity shall abound, the love of 
many shall wax cold." The Bible is full of utter- 
ances which reach beyond their special application, 
which have a human or a divine truth in them, be- 
sides their historical truth or fitness, which have a 
meaning for every human heart wherever found. 
Hence the universal character of the Bible, whose 
burden rising from the depths of human nature 
speaks to human nature everywhere. Hence its 
wealth as a text-book for the Christian Church, 
which by the general judgment and selection of 
fifty generations has placed it at the head of its 
sacred books, and from it drawn a constant inspira- 
tion. In the Bible we have recorded for our in- 
struction the deepest religious experience of our 
race, so far as our view extends ; hence its power 
over us. In its pages are found oracles which 
speak the fitting word for all the varied experiences 



FAITHFULNESS. 95 

of the soul, — which give suggestion, warning, en- 
couragement, consolation, peace, strength, where 
they are needed. 

Among "the warning oracles whose suggestive- 
ness is always fresh, and which never lack a mean- 
ing, is this prophecy of the Saviour : " Because ini- 
quity shall abound, the love of many shall wax 
cold." Doubtless, since the world began, this has 
been so. The young soul, fresh and hopeful, sings 
its "songs of innocence"; all is fair, and bright, 
and beautiful, and heaven near at hand ; the lambs, 
the flowers, the gay sunshine, the rainbow, and the 
stars, — these figure the world to him. The whole 
year round is to him one spring-time, and the human 
heart the home of "mercy, pity, peace, and love." 
The dark cloud of evil distantly seen, is to him only 
a cloud, and he wonders that men should fear it. 
The cloud rolls up and bursts upon him, his years 
pass by and bring their sorrows, and his soul must 
needs sing now the bitter " songs of experience." 
The harmless lambs, with which his fancy played, 
are turned to tigers. His human world is now no 
longer peace and love, but cruelty and jealousy, 
harlotry and envy, and avarice, and secresy, and 
even over the face of heaven there is a mist obscur- 
ing the Divine image. His heart waxes cold and 
faint at the iniquity which abounds around him. 

Doubtless something like this has been the expe- 
rience of the human soul since the world began, 
and yet it sometimes seems as though our time 



g6. FAITHFULNESS. 

especially needed this voice of warning; as though, 
with our peaceful and refined civilization, the ini- 
quity abounding in us and in the world spread its 
despair more subtly and invisibly, and needed to 
be more vigilantly guarded against, than in ruder 
times, when its hand was heavier, and its action 
more violent, and its persecution more open and 
apparent. What in rude times is open war, under 
a more peaceful civilization becomes more and 
more an inward conflict, lacking not only the vio- 
lence of the older style, but also something of its 
stir, its sustaining excitement, its direct fame and 
glory. The inward conflict, being more private, 
hidden, and secret, its results more doubtful, and 
more difficult to discern, seems to call for a more 
single motive, and a deeper constancy of purpose, 
and a deeper consolation and reward, than when 
the issues were more plainly made, the strife more 
open, the weapons more carnal, and the action more 
violent. To be a martyr on a single and plain 
issue, has not only its terrors, but its sustaining 
inspiration. But to keep steadfast to our princi- 
ples and to our faith ; to keep the sacred fire burn- 
ing in our hearts amidst obscurity and confusion, 
with friends and foes mixed up around us, so that 
we can hardly tell them from each other, and are 
in constant danger of betrayal; amidst doubtful 
and perplexing issues, with everything in question ; 
amid the confusion of tongues, the scorning of those 
who are at ease, the noisy murmuring of the ignor- 



FAITHFULNESS. 97 

ant, the subtle arguments of sophistry, the secret 
plots of grasping men, the corruption of the weak 
and dishonest, and all the rest, to keep a steadfast 
and a living heart amid the manifold influences of the 
ignorance and error and iniquity abounding in our 
times, seems to call for a specially abundant and 
many-sided strength. In ruder times, human na- 
ture is simpler and undeveloped ; hence life is sim- 
pler, its righteousness is simpler, the perversion of 
righteousness, iniquity, is simpler. With every 
new development of human nature, every new sci- 
ence and art and power and activity, human life 
grows more complex ; its possibility of excellence is 
enlarged, and its possibility of iniquity also. Each 
growth in human nature adds new forms of virtue 
and new forms of vice to the old catalogue. The 
new development, if it be true, brings with it, in- 
deed, a truth and power of its own, which is a pos- 
itive addition to our life ; but it also occasions new 
perversions after its own kind, new faults and new 
danger, and needs new safeguards. And so our 
developing peaceful civilization brings with it a 
moral complexity which calls for a more developed 
and many-sided virtue than the simpler times called 
for. Our characters growing more complex, the 
iniquity in us confused with the rest of our charac- 
ter is more disguised and hidden. The persecution 
of the righteous and of righteousness is now not 
so much open violence, as a kind of moral pressure, 
a deadening influence, the subtle effect of weak or 

13 



98 FAITHFULNESS. 

unrighteous character, working with the power of 
sympathy upon others. The iniquity is rather felt 
than seen, and in its atmosphere the heart grows 
cold and lifeless, without knowing why. The strife 
is in word, the strength must come from within. 

Thus, in our personal experience, we desire to 
do right, but the temptation comes, and we do 
wrong ; we repent, and feel again the desire of 
righteousness ; again the temptation comes, and 
again we yield, and because of the iniquity in us, 
which thus baffles our resolution, our love may 
begin to wax cold, our repentance may grow 
weaker and shallower, our sin more frequent, until 
at last the very desire of that righteousness may 
not only wax cold but die, and forsake our soul, 
until called back by some experience, some word 
of God more powerful than the soul's lifelessness 
wakens it. What is it that can guard us against 
this loss of heart, against this dying of the soul ? 
Experience brings the struggle surely and inevi- 
tably to every soul, the struggle ending for us only 
with our breath. What strength have we to rely 
upon to meet it ? If we have failed before, does, 
not experience prophesy more failure for us ? Can 
we hope to be stronger than before ? We might, 
perhaps, have little ground for hope, if we consulted 
only our own experience of failure. Therein lies 
the strength of great examples, that they give us a 
more complete experience of human life than our 
own memory can give us. They show righteous- 



FAITHFULNESS. 99 

ness itself in its own beauty and native truth, 
apart from ourselves, and our own power or 
weakness. To keep our love from waxing cold, 
and dying from the iniquity in us, we must keep 
in mind the objects of our love, the righteousness 
which we desired ; we must possess our minds 
with its excellence in itself apart from our attain- 
ment of it, as having its preciousness eternal, 
whether we can reach to it or not, — that thus we 
may love even its courts and neighborhood, and 
keep our faces towards it, lest the poor soul be lost 
in the outer darkness, and its hope fail. And we 
can draw strength also through sympathy, by faith 
in those whose souls have been tried like ours, and 
who have kept steadfast under it. Theirs is a hu- 
man help, more visible and tangible, and in some 
ways more suited to our human nature than the 
divine truth in itself regarded in its height and 
mystery. 

And if our soul be larger than ourselves, and 
will not rest in private aspiration, but looks out 
with a high sympathy upon its brethren, then in 
the first flush of its larger love it desires the public 
righteousness, — that the world of men, with which 
it feels itself one, may be righteous; that every 
evil may be put down, and justice and peace and 
good-will and a pure glory prevail throughout 
society. The youth chooses his field, — the Church, 
the State, the court, the market, or the general 
social life of his neighborhood. He studies the 



100 FAITHFULNESS. 

principles of his work. He enters it. But he finds 
this part of it not to his taste, — too much iniquity 
in it, a very mixed state of men and things con- 
nected with it, not much like his first notions of it. 
He tries another part, and behold it is the same 
there. The same kind of human being with all his 
peculiarities is there also. His love waxes cold; 
this is not what he bargained for. He believes in 
the principles, he says, but this grimy work, and 
the practices of some of those engaged in it with 
whom he is brought into contact, are too much for 
him. And so, perhaps, he gives up his work, and 
tries something else. But there again, he finds the 
same old Adam with whom he met before, — men 
with different coats, and answering to different 
names and professions, and with a variation of 
habits, but very like the others. If he can afford 
it, he perhaps retires from the field to let mankind 
take care of itself, and tries no more than to take 
care of -himself. If he cannot afford to leave his 
work, he stays in it, and does its business for such 
advantages of support and reputation as may come 
from it, or from a severe sense of duty ; but his 
heart grows faint in it, his public soul waxes cold, 
his interest dies out. 

Such is the danger of all our public life. All 
our institutions are simply ourselves associated for 
a certain end along with such association as may 
be possible with men of other times and other 
lands. All our private life is simply ourselves, 



FAITHFULNESS. 101 

with such natures as we may be endowed with, in 
certain relations with the truth and with other 
souls, all our public life simply ourselves associated 
with other men, for certain common ends, and 
both in our private and our public life, the human 
basis of all our aspiration, and faith, and love, is 
this human nature of ours. Our aspiration takes 
its winged flight only to be checked and brought 
to earth again by this heavy weight of our earthly 
nature. The divine Providence seems to say to 
us, Your aspiration is a fine thing ; let us see how 
strong it is ; how much weight it will carry. And 
then Providence puts our human nature, with all 
its attendant ignorance and iniquity, upon our back, 
and bids us fly with that. We think the fault is 
in our circumstances, or our work, or our profes- 
sion ; but no, it is in ourselves, and our neighbors, 
in our human nature itself. Landsman, seaman, 
craftsman, statesman, churchman, we may turn 
any one of these, but we cannot turn ourselves in 
that way, nor turn out the iniquity in us, nor can 
we in any work, or any institution, find a place 
free from these human and earthly conditions. 
The iniquity which chills the heart, enters every 
part of human life, because it has its source in 
human nature. 

Hence the struggle between iniquity and our 
soul's health is sure alike, in our personal hearts 
and in all our life. We must be prepared to meet 
this danger, and be on our guard against it every- 



102 FAITHFULNESS. 

where. If there is one moral sickness which infects 
at least our public life more than another, it is this 
deadening of the heart, this waxing cold because 
of the weakness and iniquity we meet with every- 
where. We all want the republic to be justly 
administered ; but we are very apt to want some- 
body else to do the necessary work, to take the 
rubs, to endure the slanders, and opposition, and 
other incidental hardships, while we, like the gods 
of whom Epicurus taught, stand outside and con- 
demn the follies of those who are engaged in the 
work. We all would be very glad to have the 
kingdom of God established upon earth, the truth 
of God discovered and proclaimed, and human 
nature enlightened and inspired and glorified, and 
the holy church universal, mankind one family of 
the faithful, — to have all this a reality; but any 
actual work or effort toward such an end we are 
very apt to want somebody else to do; any inci- 
dental studying, travelling, fighting, working, pay- 
ing, thinking, or acting, we prefer some one else to 
do, while we enjoy their inevitable blunders and 
shortcomings. And so with schools, and courts, 
and arts, and all the rest. 

But if we thus act, let us know ourselves for 
what we are, and not cover our weakness by any 
fine names of refinement, or culture, or a sensitive 
morality. We may have culture and refinement, 
and a certain moral sensitiveness, but none the less 
is the surrender of our duty, weakness, and deser- 



FAITHFULNESS. IO3 

tion. In yielding to any iniquity around us, we 
are surrendering our souls, and not only is the 
work which we ought to do left undone, but our 
own souls are sickened by our neglecting it. By 
neglecting the duty which we owe, because of the 
iniquity which we find associated with it, we be- 
come the aiders and abetters of that iniquity. We 
are not neutral, for responsibility destroys neutral- 
ity. Is he a neutral who surrenders his post to 
the enemy? If he do it under anything less than 
necessity, we do not call him a neutral, but some- 
thing worse. 

That iniquity penetrates our human life and our 
human nature, is a plain fact of experience. That 
it has a deadening influence upon the soul, and 
presses hard upon our private and our public vir- 
tue, is another plain fact. It chills our faith and 
love and hope, and slackens the beating of our 
heart. But if we yield to it, what then ? If our 
public love, or private love, or personal aspiration 
and faith wax cold, what does that mean? It 
means no less than the failing of the soul itself, — 
so much less soul, so much less life, iniquity the 
master of us. If this process were complete, the 
spiritual life would end. The only balance to the 
iniquity in the world is the love and truth in it; 
the only remedy for it is in the increase of that 
love and truth. If iniquity abound, and our love 
wax cold then by our coldness we make the ini- 
quity to abound the more. Rather if iniquity 



104. FAITHFULNESS. 

abound, grace should much more abound ; and as 
the iniquity is the perversion of the human nature, 
so the grace which should overcome it must come 
from the righteous human nature. Heaven puts 
us in the field together, not that we may help the 
iniquity by yielding our souls to its despair, but 
that by our faithfulness we may overcome it. 

This, then, is a danger which we must all meet 
throughout our life, against which we must be 
constantly on guard, and against which we must 
summon up all our spiritual strength, and call in 
all the allies of our souls; for do what we will, we 
shall sometimes feel the chill and faintness, and 
our endurance will be difficult. And of the sources 
whence we may draw help, I will name again the 
meditation of the truth. This is an inspiration 
known alike to the simple and the learned. "This 
is right ; this I ought to do ; this that I see before 
me is the truth, for me to obey." Such thoughts 
as these, the sight of the truth itself as it lies 
before us, all this braces our souls. We may 
think, " I have tried this before, and failed ; why try 
again? I shall probably fail again;" or, "I cannot 
do this, nobody will expect it of me ; " or, " Everybody 
will laugh at me," — and all the sophistries of weak- 
ness. But if we hold the truth of the matter steadily 
before our conscience, if we keep our duty and the 
right in sight, then these cowardly doubts may play 
and nicker around it ; but there is a power in us 
holding us, inspiring us, sustaining us against ini- 



FAITHFULNESS. 105 

quity. The divine reality present to our souls, 
however imperfectly it may dwell in them, will yet 
strengthen us against evil ; and with this thought 
of the truth and right, our faith will associate what- 
ever of fatherly care and protection and comfort 
we may trust to be in God. And like unto this 
divine aid is the help of our fellow-men, — the ex- 
ample, the word, the faith, the love of others tried 
like us. This is a great part of the strength of the 
Church, that it consciously associates and unites 
the faith and prayer and effort of mankind towards 
holy ends. This human help is, as I have said, in 
some ways more suited to our common nature than 
the direct inspiration of the truth. Often we need 
the Elder Brother to lead us to the Father; and 
never more, perhaps, than when our heart is cold 
at our own or others' sinfulness. The bitterness 
with which we think on our own or others' iniquity, 
the sorrow over the evil in our human nature, is 
cured by the sight of human goodness in some 
better brother. Thus are the holy memories of 
mankind, the sacred life of the past, a present in- 
spiration and a living power. 

And in our public faith and love, if we would 
endure, we must there also see the truth, keep our 
object and our purpose before us in itself, apart 
from our success or failure. We must first and 
chiefly ask, What is to be done ? and keep that ob- 
ject steadily before us ; and next, How can I do it? 
and to that give our patience and our strength ; 

14 



106 FAITHFULNESS. 

and if we would endure to the end, we must be 
content to recognize the worth of every kind of 
service, from the direct and mastering action, down 
to the simple protest or sympathy of the soul. We 
must not ask too eagerly for the outward sign, nor 
be too discouraged at its absence ; but we must fill 
out our sight with spiritual discernment, must 
sometimes join in forlorn hopes, and be content 
with almost no result. And here, too, we may 
•find abundant help from those who have gone be- 
fore us. 

And he who shall endure unto the end, and meet 
the iniquity within and around him, and fulfil his 
private and his public life in spite of it, he shall be 
saved, and he shall save others also. 



CHEISTIAN LIBEETY. 



What is the question between the upholders of 
the free principle in religion and the upholders of 
the various despotic principles prevalent in many 
churches ? The question is, What is the last 
earthly appeal in religion ? It is not, What is the 
divine appeal ? The divine authority every one 
alike acknowledges to be the truth of God. Roman 
Catholic, Calvinist, Unitarian, and the rest, all alike 
acknowledge the truth of God, and the reality of 
his world, to be the divine, final, and absolute 
authority. But the question lies wholly upon the 
human side : What is the last earthly appeal, on 
what, humanly speaking, do we in the last resort 
base our religion ? The upholders of religious ab- 
solutism are apt to confuse the question, by con- 
founding the divine and human sides of it. The 
authority of God's truth and of the Roman Catho- 
lic Church, says the Roman Catholic, as though 
they were identical ; but the one is divine, the other 
earthly. And it is the earthly authority alone 
about which we differ. 



108 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

What, then, is the last earthly appeal in religion ? 
In Christendom, there are four principal answers to 
this question. There are those who base religion^ 
first, on the Church; second, on the Bible; third, 
on the person Jesus Christ ; fourth, on the human 
spirit itself, directly related with the truth. Ob- 
serve that these are all realities ; the Church is a 
reality, and the Bible and Jesus Christ and the 
human spirit are realities. It is not, Do we believe 
in these realities? but, How do we believe in them, 
and how do we relate them ? 

People talk of the coming conflict between Ro- 
manism and Protestantism ; but the conflict has 
already come. It is but one phase of the conflict 
between religious absolutism and religious liberty, 
which existed long before Luther's day, and which 
is now going on actively, not only between Roman- 
ism and Protestantism, but inside of Protestantism, 
to some degree in all churches and religions the 
world over. Whether with us it will again come 
to carnal blows and bloody battles, is an incidental 
question. The conflict is now affecting men's 
souls, which is the main matter. You may cut 
down a plant with a knife, or you may put it in the 
dark, out of the sunshine and the rain, and let it 
pine and wither ; and so with men : you may kill 
them by war, and you may also sap their souls with 
false doctrine, which will bear fruit after its own 
kind. And that men prize their soul's life above 
their body's life they show, themselves, when they 



CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. IO9 

are willing to fight for their principles, for their 
soul's life. The root of religious wars lies in the 
opposite religious faiths which men hold. But 
these faiths, whether they result in war or not, 
work each its own effect upon the soul which holds 
it, and upon the public character. The conflict is 
always going on inwardly, whether it break out 
upon the surface or not. 

On these four bases, and various combinations of 
them, men ground their faith, and on them churches 
have grown up and are now growing. Each one of 
these principles has its effect upon the private soul 
after its kind, and upon the public character, upon 
the present life of society, and upon the future. 

Let us look at each of the four bases, — first, the 
Church. Roman Catholics, Greek Churchmen, I 
believe, and High Churchmen, and perhaps others, 
appeal in the last resort to the church, as final and 
absolute authority. Each understands the church 
differently. The new Romanism puts the whole 
power over the "faith and morals" of mankind, 
over the conscience and the conduct of the human 
race, in the hands of its chief priest, the Pope. 
The older Romanism vested the same power, not 
in one autocrat, but in an oligarchy of bishops. 
The Greek Church and the High Churchman ap- 
peal to the decisions of the earlier councils as final. 
But all, in one form or another, make the church 
supreme over the conscience and the mind of men. 
But what is the church of man, which they thus 



IIO CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

make supreme over man ? For it is not the church 
of God, the holy city of the blessed, the society of 
perfect souls. It is not the inner church to which 
they ascribe this authority, though they often speak 
as if it were ; but it is the outward church, the 
church of man, the earthly representative of the 
mystical city, the actual ecclesiastical corporation. 
Now what is this church of man ? Is it anything 
else than a certain number of men, associated for 
religion ? Even granting Jesus to be God, his 
presence on the earth was only for a few years. 
All the rest of the time the church, as an actual 
institution, has consisted entirely of human beings. 
What essential difference does it make how many 
of them there are ? The ocean is immeasurably 
larger than one drop of water, but for all its volume 
it is still the same water as the drop. So one hun- 
dred millions of men, multiplied one hundred times, 
if you will, gives us nothing more than man. The 
semper, ab omnibus, ubique, granting it to be true, 
gives us only man after all. The church to which 
this appeal is made is an institution consisting of 
men. When we analyze it, then, the appeal of the 
church means the appeal to an association of men, 
or to its government. Those who affirm the church 
to be supreme over the human soul assume a .final 
and absolute authority, not in God only, but in a 
human institution also, in a certain body of men, 
or its elected officers. 

Second, the Bible. What is the Bible? It is 



CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. Ill 

confessedly composed of the writings of certain 
Hebrews, from very early times to a short time 
after Christ. These writings every one acknowl- 
edges to be the work of men, conceived in human 
language, written down by human hands. They 
do indeed contain the life of others than the writ- 
ers; they contain the life of those of whom these 
writers wrote ; but even that life comes to us through 
these writers. And of those of whom they wrote, 
one only, Jesus Christ, is claimed by anybody to 
be God ; the others, all the men of the Old Testa- 
ment, and the apostles in the New, all allow to be 
men. Even if Jesus were God, he did not write 
the Old Testament ; neither did he write the New 
Testament, however much it may have been in- 
spired by him. The New Testament was written 
of him, not by him, but by certain persons con- 
fessedly human ; and it is not to his writings, but 
to their writings, and to the writings of their an- 
cient compatriots, that appeal is made when the 
Bible is set up as infallible. Is the creature more 
than the Creator? Can a human thing be more 
than the human being whence it came ? a book 
more than its author ? Not all the reasoning in 
the world can shake the simple fact, that a book is 
a human thing derived from a human being, and 
that any divine truth which there may be in it 
must have been in the man first. A book means 
the man or men whence it came ; it cannot mean 
more than its original. Grant the Bible to have 



112 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

been inspired by God, and him to have been its 
first cause and divine original, yet the inspiration 
confessedly passed through men, and must have 
been humanized in doing so. These men are the 
human original of the Bible. Those, therefore, 
who affirm the Bible to be supreme over the con- 
science assert a final authority over all men's souls, 
not only in God and his truth, but in certain He- 
brew men also. 

Third, there are those who consider the person 
Jesus to be supreme over all men's consciences. 
This is the position, I should judge, of many Uni- 
tarians, especially among the elders, and perhaps 
of Dr. Channing ; though it is hard to get at their 
precise thought here, if, indeed, it be precise. Per- 
haps the question was not so strongly forced home 
to them as it is to us, and so their thought was less 
defined. For myself, believing Jesus to be man, 
and under human conditions, it is impossible for 
me to conceive a final and absolute authority to be 
in him. But even on the supposition that Jesus is 
God, and possesses absolute authority, is it possible 
for us to appeal to it ? Is there any medium be- 
tween him and us, other than a human one. We 
may appeal to his recorded words, but those came 
to us through men. We may appeal to the church, 
as the possessor of the organic Christian tradition, 
but the church too, at any rate since Christ's time, 
consists solely of men. And so of all the possible 
mediums between him and us, — they are all human, 



CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. I I 3 

and his authority, even if divine and absolute in it- 
self, must be humanized in passing through these 
men before it reaches us ; that is, must lose its abso- 
lute quality. Supposing such an authority to exist 
in Jesus, we must, in order to have it reach us and 
be operative, deify the medium through which it 
reaches us ; we must either deify the church as the 
Roman Catholics do, or the Bible or New Testament 
as some Protestants do, or at any rate that part of the 
New Testament ascribed directly to Jesus, as some 
Unitarians incline to do. But no one will assert 
even those words put by the Evangelists in the 
mouth of Jesus to have been written by him ; but 
all acknowledge them to have come to us through, 
at the very least, one man, the writer. And the 
divine and absolute authority is not a thing to rest 
on probability, as that this writer in any special 
case probably reported it right, — for that probably 
brings in the very human element, which human- 
izes the absolute. The authority of Jesus, even if 
originally absolute, to be operative, must reach us 
through an absolute medium. To affirm it, we 
must affirm an absolute authority in the men 
through whom it comes to us. 

Fourth, there are those who rest religion, at the 
last earthly appeal, upon the human spirit itself, 
directly and responsibly related with the truth of 
God and the reality of his world ; upon the integ- 
rity of the human conscience, inwardly related with 
the divine spirit. The personal watchword of this 



114 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

position is, " Salvation by faith, not by conformity 
to human ordinances and established observances, 
but by the free loyalty of the spirit to the truth." 
The right of private judgment is the same thing on 
the intellectual side. Man, the child of God, is its 
gospel. Since Luther broke the Roman absolut- 
ism in Western Europe, this faith has been largely 
present in the Protestant part of Christendom, 
along with much else which tradition has mixed 
with it, but with which it cannot unite, always pres- 
ent in some measure, modifying, reforming, inspir- 
ing one part after another of Protestantism. " Here 
I stand: I cannot otherwise: God help me: Amen." 
That faith broke Rome ; that faith is still working 
in Christendom. 

How, then, is this last faith, which, while making- 
its final and divine appeal to the truth of God, 
makes its last human appeal to the personal con- 
science itself, related with the others which we 
have been considering, — first, with that faith which 
makes the church supreme over all consciences ? 
The outward church which is here appealed to 
simply means, as we have seen, a certain number 
of men religiously associated, simply a part of man- 
kind. To give to a part of mankind absolute do- 
minion over the consciences of the rest of mankind 
necessarily denies the divine spirit in the rest of 
mankind ; denies them their gospel birthright, and 
puts above them, not only the divine authority, but 
a human absolutism as well. This absolutism va- 



CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. I I 5 

ries in its form. It may vest the whole power in 
one Pope, which is the present Roman form, the 
most developed form of tyranny, only saved from 
being intolerable by the absence of power in the 
Pope to enforce his decrees ; or it may vest it in a 
body of bishops, or other officers. The more re- 
mote and the more vague the body in which the 
authority rests, the greater the practical liberty, 
but the form makes no essential difference in the 
principle. Wherever an absolute authority is 
claimed for the church over my conscience, there 
my gospel birthright is denied ; and in place of God 
and his truth is put a body of men and their com- 
mandments, — a human absolutism. 

And those who appeal in this way to the Bible, 
as final over the private conscience, do the like. 
The Bible, as we have seen, has a human original, 
as well as a divine original. It means the men 
from whence it came, of whom and by whom it 
was written. To affirm it then to be final over my 
conscience necessarily denies my right of con- 
science, subjects me and the spirit in me to certain 
Hebrew men. It is essentially the same human 
absolutism as that of the infallible church. It al- 
lows us greater practical liberty indeed, for the 
authority is so remote, and the contents of it so 
varied, that unless supplemented by some infallible 
interpreter and agent, there is a wide range of in- 
terpretation and action possible. From the book 
of Genesis to Revelation there is room for a very 



Il6 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

considerable breadth of speculation both in faith 
and morals. We may be polygamists with Abra- 
ham, as the Mormons are; we may hew down the 
heathen with Joshua and Samuel, as our forefathers 
did ; we may hold slaves with the Israelites, and, 
perhaps, the early Christians, as the Southerners 
did ; we may curse our enemies with some of the 
Psalmists, and with Paul, as all incline to do ; and 
we may believe a great variety of things, and all 
piously and properly, if it be true that the whole 
Bible is the absolute Word of God, and one part of 
it as good as any other. And even if in our pri- 
vate interpretation we ascribe to the Bible a doc- 
trine not found in it at all, there is yet no human 
authority to overrule us, and we may go on un- 
checked. In an infallible church, such a heresy is 
checked at once by the actual government. But 
without such an interpreter and agent, it may exist 
freely. So when the Reformers denied the infalli- 
bility of the church, and, letting the infallibility of 
the Bible remain, affirmed the right of private in- 
terpretation, it was as if we should deny the au- 
thority of the United States government, while 
still affirming the authority of our written consti- 
tution, with the right of each one to interpret it by 
his own mind. Evidently that meant a much larger 
practical liberty than before, — it meant the break- 
ing up of the existing organization and government 
of the church. 

There is then more room in this position which 



CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. \\J 

makes the Bible infallible, than in that which makes 
the church so. The men who by it rule my con- 
science are not living. There is no human sanction 
to their word, no anathema can come from them, 
or imprisonment, or coercion. . They are remote. 
We must go to them if we would know their mean- 
ing. They do not stand over us with direct power 
in their hand. But yet the principle is the same. 
And though the yoke would seem comparatively 
easy, the authority being so remote, yet experience 
shows us that it constantly tends to gather a pres- 
ent executive power about itself, and that this form 
of absolutism can gall and warp and crush souls 
and people with terrible power. 

Thirdly, the position of those who ascribe this 
authority over the conscience to Jesus Christ is 
open to a like objection, if Jesus be man, as I be- 
lieve. But even if he be God himself, the Eternal 
Word incarnate, his authority cannot reach us ex- 
cept through a human medium, and hence cannot 
be operative. 

The question, then, between the upholders of the 
free principle in religion, and those who rest in any 
human being or thing, a final authority over the 
conscience, apart from persuasion and conviction, 
the question between us is, Are we the children of 
God, in a full, free sense, directly and responsibly 
related with his truth and his spirit, or are we ab- 
solutely subject to certain men also, — our mind to 
their dictation, our conscience to their rule ? Such 



Il8 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

a question needs only to be stated, — it answers 
itself. 

We have been considering the principle of relig- 
ious freedom in its relations with the principle of 
absolute and final authority in Church, or in Bible, 
or in Jesus Christ. It is evident that the argument 
applies with equal force to any claim of an absolute 
authority in any human being or thing whatever. 
We have specifically considered how the principle 
of freedom is related with the claims set up by some 
men for the Church, the Bible, and Christ. We 
have not considered the Church, the Bible, and 
Christ, as they are, but as they are sometimes 
claimed to be. It remains to consider them as 
they are. For, as I have said, they are realities. 
In denying the claims set up by some men for 
them, I have not denied them. I have simply ex- 
amined the dogmas built on them, and come to 
them. How, then, is the liberty which I have 
affirmed related with Bible, Church, and Christ ? 

The principle of that liberty is that man is the 
child of God, — his judgment related with the truth, 
his conscience with the righteousness, his heart 
with the spirit of God. In the consciousness of 
his divine birthright, he who holds this faith refuses 
to surrender his spirit to any human power ; but in 
the oneness of his nature with the nature of his 
fellow-men, in the recognition of the same spirit in 
them as in himself, he is drawn to his fellow-men 
and to all things human. His faith in God reaches 



CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. I 19 

down to man, the child of God, and for the least 
and lowest of men he has some reverence, divining 
in him, even against all appearance, s.ome measure 
of the Father's spirit. This reverence grows as he 
apprehends the divine in man or in human things. 
He who holds this faith recognizes the divine birth- 
right at once of himself, and of all mankind. Thus 
all human things have their meaning to him in pro- 
portion to the truth in them. 

Let us take the Bible, then. What is the Bible, 
and what does it contain ? What does it represent 
to us ? It represents, first, in the Old Testament, 
the life of the Hebrew nation from its early begin- 
ning to the time of Christ, — not alone the writers 
and those of whom they wrote, but also those who 
preserved these books through all these generations. 
The Hebrew nation, by natural selection, by the 
common consent of the public conscience and heart, 
preserved the books of the Old Testament, as that 
of all their written life most holy, most dear to 
their hearts, and good for their souls. The Old 
Testament was not first canonized, and then loved 
and revered; it was first loved and revered, and 
then canonized. Next, in the New Testament, are 
represented to us Jesus Christ and his followers. 
Though not the writer, Jesus is the chief original 
of the New Testament, the object which inspired 
it. Finally, the Bible represents to us the judg- 
ment of Christendom, from Christ's time until now; 
that is, in the early centuries before Mohammed, of 



120 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

the west of Asia, the north of Africa, and what 
of Europe was then civilized, — since Moham- 
med's time, of Europe and her offshoots, and at 
this present time of Europe and America and their 
offshoots. By all this part of humanity, the Bible 
has been judged to contain the holiest recorded 
inspiration and life known to our race ; to be the 
writing best fitted for the inspiration of the relig- 
ious life, both the life of the private soul and of 
the church. 

So much of the human spirit is represented to us 
in our Bible, and if against our sight we apprehend 
the divine spirit in the sinful and wicked, how much 
more do we owe reverence to this book, in which is 
gathered the life and faith and judgment of so 
many generations. If we believe that we are free 
by reason of the spirit in us, and that that spirit is 
not one man's birthright only, but all men's birth- 
right, then by that very faith we ascribe a place to 
the Bible proportionate to the men whom it repre- 
sents to us. Thus while we reject the claim of 
those who ascribe an infallible supremacy to the 
Bible, we do not reject the Bible itself, but rather 
establish it in a new and more intimate relation 
with our life. Recognizing in mankind the spirit 
whereby we ourselves are free, we reverently re- 
gard the fruits of that spirit in the Bible, and in 
the pious care which has preserved it for us. 

So with the church. The church represents to 
us the larger religious life of Christendom. It 



CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 121 

holds the organic religious tradition of our part of 
humanity. If we believe in the spirit in man, can 
we disregard the fruit of the spirit in the church ? 
No ; however much we may reject the principles of 
some churches, and some things in the church, we 
reverence it by that same faith whereby we are 
free. However wanting we may think it compared 
with that ideal church, as all things actual are 
compared with their ideal, yet when we compare it 
with other human things, as we should compare it, 
we behold in it a mighty and glorious fruit of the 
spirit. In establishing our special church upon a 
free basis, we establish the general church in a new 
and fruitful relation with our life. 

And with regard to Jesus also, to whom of all 
men the eyes of our Western world have turned 
since he appeared among us, and who of all men 
has most held its loyalty and faith, and who now 
in the general faith of Christendom is either iden- 
tified with God or stands next to him, as the one 
whose spirit, of all humanity, has reached nearest 
to the divine spirit — in rejecting any claim for 
him in an absolute supremacy over our souls we do 
not necessarily reject him as the human head of 
our church, — as being, of all humanity with whom 
we are consciously associated, the one most filled 
with the divine spirit. There is nothing in the 
principle of freedom which I have affirmed incon- 
sistent with faith in Jesus, as standing in our con- 
science next to God. While we cannot accept his 



122 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

authority as absolute and overruling, apart from 
our own persuasion and conviction — for that would 
deny the gospel which he taught, whereby we are 
the children of God, — we may yet recognize in him 
that spirit which we believe to be in man, in fuller 
measure than in any other known to us. As for 
myself, I do. 

And this applies to all human life and history, as 
well to heathen as Christian. He who holds this 
faith will not despise the religion of any human 
being. The worst idol, as has been said, has rep- 
resented God to a human soul, and even while we 
may shudder at some faiths and practices, there 
yet mingles a certain reverence with our horror, — 
something of the pathos of human life and of the 
human heart is present even in the abominations 
of Moabitish or Feejee idolatry. Thus regarding 
all the religions of humanity, we do not put them 
on the same level. We know very well a religion 
of human sacrifice is not on a level with the re- 
ligion of love. We know that Christianity is bet- 
ter than the paganisms of Greece, and Rome, and 
Egypt, and Syria, and the northern nations which 
it superseded. We know there is hardly such a 
thing as a level in human life, whether religious or 
otherwise, and that the notion that one religion is 
as good as another, however smooth as a dogma, 
will not fit the facts of history and our own experi- 
ence. We do not put all religions on a level, but 
we believe in giving to each its relative position 



CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 123 

according to the value of its truth as witnessed by 
our spirits. 

But to return to our special subject. In affirm- 
ing our freedom we do not make void the Bible or 
the Church, but we establish them in a new posi- 
tion. We see in them the life of souls kindred 
with our own ; we become one with them in the 
free union of sympathy. The spirit in us not only 
frees us from human bondage, but unites us with 
all men and all human things in which the same 
spirit dwells. So that the question is not, Shall we 
hold to or reject the Bible, the Church, and Christ ? 
but, Shall we have them as our absolute masters, 
quenching our spirits, overruling our minds, crush- 
ing our souls without appeal, or shall we have them 
as fraternal helpers and guides, opening, quicken- 
ing, inspiring us to a kindred and free life ? In 
affirming the principle of freedom over an absolute 
authority, we do not annul the religious bond be- 
tween men ; we change it from a bond of despotism 
and subjection to one of union and co-working 
helpfulness. The religious principle upon which 
this freedom rests — namely, that man is the child 
of God, and hence not subject to human domina- 
tion, — I find most deeply original in the gospel of 
Jesus, and as his word I preach it. If there be 
any one who thinks it original with himself, let him 
so preach it, and let the fact judge him. 

But it is objected that this principle which makes 
us free, and at the last appeal rests upon the pri- 



124 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

vate conscience, is a private principle ; that it tends 
to individualism, and to make us look upon every 
man as the centre of the world, which is evidently 
error and confusion. There are, indeed, some who 
boldly proclaim individualism as the equivalent of 
freedom ; but it is not a question of boldness, but 
of truth. Religious individualism, whatever larger 
meaning we may foist upon the word, naturally 
suggests, and indeed emphasizes, the religious sep- 
aration of men. It centres the world, so to speak, 
in each man. But are you, after all, we may ask 
the individualist, the central fact of the world ? I 
am to myself, he may answer. But ought you not 
to be to yourself what you are in reality, and then 
if you are so to yourself, do you not deceive your- 
self? Let us rather be to ourselves what we are in 
fact, as far as that is possible to us. 

It is a natural fear which sees in freedom the 
exaltation of self, and a natural narrowness by 
which many professing freedom fall into individu- 
alism, and lose their larger life and sympathy ; but 
the fear and the narrowness alike are based upon a 
misconception, — upon the recognition of only half 
the principle. That principle is not only that I am 
free — that taken alone is individualism, — but also 
the spirit whereby I am free is in all other men, and 
in all human things ; that unites us with all hu- 
man life. 

By what right can he who affirms the spirit in 
man as the last earthly appeal, and because of its 



CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 125 

presence in himself holds himself free from all 
human domination, — by what right can he disre- 
gard the spirit in his fellow-men ? by what right 
can he despise the Bible and the Church, which are 
its long matured and precious fruits ? by what right 
can he despise the judgment which has brought 
them down to us ? 

This is the natural logic of the principle which I 
have affirmed. He who professes religious free- 
dom, then, proceeds to shut himself up within 
himself, or within any narrow circle, or within the 
limits of the present generation, and despises other 
men and human things, is only half free. Not 
until he recognizes the spirit in man, present and 
past as well, and in all human things, books, insti- 
tutions, arts, traditions, — not until then can he 
know the full measure of freedom, or receive the 
full freedom of our city. Enfranchising one en- 
franchises all, — that is the natural logic of it. 
Once recognize the spirit whereby we are free in 
all mankind, and in all that men have done, and 
thought, and created, and we find our narrowness 
expanding; we find our souls breathing a larger 
atmosphere ; we find ourselves uniting with our 
fellow-men in all directions, learning of them, rest- 
ing in them, becoming one with them in an ever 
larger fellowship. When we catch this faith, the 
life of humanity stirs to us with a new movement. 
The Bible and the Church grow living. Through 
them the spirit of kindred souls speaks to us, not 



126 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

with formal commandment and fixed rules, but 
with the freer voice of example and sympathetic 
life. 

It is likewise objected that, by turning to the 
principle of freedom, rather than to any form of 
absolute authority, we give up a professedly infalli- 
ble and fixed authority, for one confessedly varia- 
ble, fallible, and imperfect, and this seems a great 
surrender. And it is very true that he who recog- 
nizes the free spirit in man will no longer look for 
any final and infallible authority in man, or in the 
church. But though upon the face of it it seems 
a great surrender to give up all idea of such an au- 
thority in the church, yet a little consideration may 
change our view. Consider a moment, — the church 
of man is made up of men. Believe it to be divine, 
as well we may, yet the divine spirit is contained in 
earthen vessels, in men, its books written, its ser- 
vice rendered, its entire life, at least since Christ's 
time, confessedly lived by men. Not the Pope 
himself can deny that. The church, then, consist- 
ing of men, what does an infallible supremacy in 
the church mean ? or in any part of the church, — 
Scriptures, councils, or Pope ? What can it mean 
but the supremacy of one part of the church over the 
rest ? The infallible authority seems a glorious thing 
in itself, but it cannot reside in the church, without 
being exercised over the church. It includes not 
only the exaltation of one part, but the subjection 
of the other part. If we set the Bible up on the 



CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 127 

divine throne, we do indeed exalt it, but by the 
same act we subject all men's souls to it. If we set 
up the bishops or the Pope, in so doing we put 
down under their feet the rest of the church. Ex- 
alt the infallible authority high aloft, and say that 
in it the church is exalted ; but these subject ones, 
are not they, too, part of the church ? is not the 
church degraded in their degradation ? 

Look upon this picture of a church in which 
there is an absolute supremacy claimed, and as far 
as possible enforced. See this power raised up, 
and see the rest, the great body of believers, sub- 
ject to it, stifling their minds, thinking to do God 
service by denying their own souls, and surrender- 
ing their noblest part. That we may see any day 
around us. Does such a church as that, with one 
power enthroned above, and all the rest subject at 
its feet, seem to us more perfect than that church 
which grows out of the fellowship of free souls 
held together by common loyalty to the truth ? 

But in setting aside the claim to infallible au- 
thority, we are not delivered up to mere chance 
direction. Our consciences, though not infallible, 
are yet responsible ; and not merely responsible in 
an absolute sense, but their responsibility is sanc- 
tioned and upheld by all the realities of God's 
world,. and by his laws. If I in my freedom make 
a mistake, the same pains and inevitable conse- 
quences will follow it, as if I believed in an infalli- 
ble authority. If I sin, my sin will find me out 



128 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

just the same; the judgment of my life, good and 
bad, will follow hard behind me, and scourge or 
bless me just the same. Rejecting all claim to in- 
fallible authority, we do not reject the moral law, 
nor our accountability ; nor do we, nor indeed can 
we, escape its judgment. By affirming that there 
is a spirit in man whereby he is free from human 
domination, we do, indeed, annul that law which 
puts men's commandments in the place of God's 
truth ; but we do not annul or deny the law of God. 
Rather, we establish it in a more intimate relation 
with the human heart, as having there its direct 
hold and power. Affirming the spirit in man, we 
consciously bind ourselves by the spirit to the law 
and truth of which our spirits witness. The free 
church is held together, not by any compulsion of 
uniformity forced upon it from without, but by the 
integrity of the conscience in men, drawing them 
to the truth, and drawing them to a union with 
each other in the truth. So that the principle of 
freedom does not do away with the unity of the 
faith. On the divine side, it looks to that unity of 
truth which others look to. The truth as it is, one 
and invariable, the reality of God, the eternal laws 
which uphold it, — to these we make the same ap- 
peal as others do. It is, as I have said, not on the 
question of the divine unity of the truth, but on 
the earthly unity representing it that we differ. 
And on the human side, the unity of freedom is 
based upon faith in the integrity of the human 






CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 1 29 

spirit ; its vital relation with the one truth of God, 
and upon the oneness of the spirit in all men. It 
is not invariable. It recognizes the imperfection 
of man, and all things of man, even the church^ of 
man. Its unity is not a thing of the past, essen- 
tially accomplished, or with its development con- 
fined and ruled within certain limits. It reaches 
after the unity of divine truth, conscious that it 
has only partially attained to it, knowing that God's 
word cannot be bound within any earthly thing, 
but seeking still its measure of the truth, and 
knowing that in that it will at least attain to unity. 
Thus we do not do away with the unity of the 
faith, however much diversity and struggle may 
accompany the change in freedom ; but we reach 
after a larger unity than the fixed canon either of 
Bible or of church. We rest our unity upon the 
oneness of the truth itself, and the oneness of the 
human mind vitally related with it. In that faith 
we wait for the larger unity, which shall be strong 
enough to bear variations and diversities, that unity 
to which, through change and struggle, we believe 
the integrity of our minds will at last bring us. 

And here there arises an interesting question for 
us to consider: How is the private judgment related 
with the public judgment, the private conscience 
with the public conscience, the private duty and 
action with the public duty and action ? 

This is a much larger question than it at first 
looks, and includes the relation of our own mind 



I30 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

and conscience, not alone with those of our imme- 
diate neighbors, but with the entire world present 
and past, in any way associated with us. 

In any case, it is evident that we shall either 
agree with the general judgment, or differ from it. 
If we agree, the case is simple ; but if we differ, 
what principle ought then to guide us ? Suppose, 
for instance, the public round me says, This is so. 
I look at it, and it seems to me not so. I look 
again, and in all simplicity of conscience, I see it 
as before. Here is a conflict. I have a mind and 
conscience ; so have my neighbors. We stand on 
an even footing there. Furthermore, we are both 
fallible. I may be right and they wrong, or they 
right and I wrong. 

There are, then, two dangers here. I am liable 
to think myself right, when I am wrong, — that is, I 
may be wilful and self-conceited ; and I am liable 
to think them right when they are wrong, — that is, 
I am liable to surrender my mind to theirs. Which 
of these dangers is the greater? Your radical par- 
tisan answers that question easily. He lays it 
down, " The dangers of an excessive individualism 
are much less than those of an undue submission 
to authority." Your conservative partisan settles 
it as easily, " The one danger of the present time 
is this wilful disregard of institutions and estab- 
lished beliefs." But these judgments seem rather 
to fit the personal taste and sympathy of those 
who utter them, than to express the full truth of 



CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. I3I 

the matter. The radical partisan does not see that 
his wilfulness and arbitrariness is the very evil in 
himself which he so hates in others. If a church 
tries arbitrarily to impose its word on me, it is 
tyranny. If one man tries arbitrarily to impose 
his word on me, is not the motive the same, and 
the effect the same, as far as it goes ? The Roman 
Catholic Church says, " Believe as I say, or be 
banned here, and suffer hereafter." The arbitrary 
man says, " Believe as I say, or you are a fool." 
Is there not a family likeness here ? Is the motive 
any less arbitrary, because the form it takes is per- 
sonal and not ecclesiastical ? Multiply our arbi- 
trary man by some millions, put power into his 
grasp, let the same temper guide him, and have we 
not something very like the ecclesiastical tyranny 
which above all things he hates ? But it is not the 
size, but the quality, of our action which determines 
its character. An arbitrary man is of the same 
piece as all other tyrannies. He is a younger 
brother of the Pope, whatever name he may be 
called by, however large or small his party. This 
subtile spirit of tyranny needs nothing larger than 
a human heart to dwell in. He is as much at home 
under the cap of liberty as under the crown or the 
tiara, and can speak all languages, and wear all 
colors, and assume all styles. He can inspire to 
selfishness alike the rich and the poor, the learned 
and ignorant, the weak and powerful ; alike the 
priest and him who hates the priest ; alike the vast 



132 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

organized church and the little churches, and the 
sect of yesterday, be it orthodox or heterodox. He 
can creep into them all and possess them. He 
lurks at the door of all our hearts, and laughs as 
he enters where the door is left unguarded, in the 
security that we are surely free. We think we are 
fighting battles for freedom, and attacking ecclesi- 
asticism, and working hard against all forms of 
tyranny ; and lo ! the enemy which we have thought 
possessed only churches and governments, and 
large and public bodies, glides subtly into our 
souls, and we know it not ; and we too are among 
the tyrants ; we have caught their spirit. I cannot 
hold the dangers of an excessive individualism to 
be comparatively slight, for I see that arbitrariness 
in one man is the same thing as in a vast institu- 
tion, — that it is an injury to his own soul, and to 
all around him, for it is a disease that is catching. 
Neither can I agree with our conservative parti- 
san, that the great need of the times is uncondi- 
tional conformity to established ideas and institu- 
tions, for that would give us peace at the expense 
of character. What would it profit us if we should 
gain perfect quiet and uniformity, an undisturbed 
discipline and organization, a public life in Church 
and State without a stir or ripple on its surface, if 
in so doing we should lose the manhood which is 
the public soul? What would it profit us to have 
an outward order, if we had no men and women of 
free minds, of original and achieving energy, eager 



CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 1 33 

for truth, filled with generous and lofty purposes ? 
Such are only bred by freedom. In the long run, 
too, this submissiveness of character would be the 
opposite of safe. If we should succeed in taming 
the public to perfect smoothness, we should in so 
doing lay the seeds of a worse trouble than we had 
cured. This weak, submissive temper would either 
bring the decline of the public spirit, or would pre- 
pare the way for a reaction as uncontrolled and 
wild as the submissiveness had been unreasoning 
and tame. 

In case of a conflict, then, between my convic- 
tion and the public conviction, what principles 
should guide me ? I may be right or the public 
may be right. The presumption of numbers is on 
the public side. And history shows us multitudes 
of dissents from the public judgment where the 
dissenters were mistaken. Our own experience 
tells us that we have often thought ourselves wiser 
than the world, and a little study or experience has 
reversed our judgment. History shows us multi- 
tudes of men dreaming that they are great poets, 
or painters, or musicians, and men who have con- 
ceived universal reforms, and the setting of all 
things upon new foundations, and the establish- 
ment of new religions, but who have not had the 
stuff to do it with, and so have failed. Human life 
is pathetic with such mistakes as these. 

And, on the other hand, there are plenty of 
instances in history, and in our own experience, 



134 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

where one simple, straightforward conscience, even 
of a young, unlearned, inexperienced person, has 
been right, against the voice of age, and the judg- 
ment of the wise and prudent. 

I may be right, or the public may be right ; how 
shall we decide ? We must appeal to the truth 
itself, about which we differ, to test our judgment. 
The ground of all faith is the reality which is the 
object of faith ; in proportion as that reality is per- 
ceived and grasped, will our faith in it be strong 
and firm. My personal faith and the public faith 
rest upon the one reality which is the object of it. 
In case of conflict, then, we must test our convic- 
tion by the reality, and by the reality I do not 
mean merely the abstract truth of the matter, but 
the reality in any of its forms, either the inward 
essential truth, or the fruit of it, the practical ten- 
dency of it. How does this idea work ? How does 
it affect the character ? How society ? Will it 
bring decline or progress ? Thus, in all manner of 
ways, we must test the question between any pub- 
lic conviction and our own, if we differ from it. 
This consideration will cure us of many self- 
deceptions. Inquiry justifies what is true, but 
works the opposite effect with what is false. But 
if the conflict still remain, and inquiry confirm it, 
what then ? How stands the balance between our 
private judgment and the public judgment? At 
first glance, our private judgment shows very small; 
it is one man against a multitude. If numbers 



CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 135 

rule, we must surrender. But if the one man, as 
sometimes happens, has the truth, how stands it 
then ? Remember Frederic Douglas' words, " One 
with God is a majority." One man with the truth 
outweighs the world without it. He holds a posi- 
tion against which numbers have no meaning. 

In case of such a conflict, then, which test and 
inquiry does not remove, but confirm, we must 
stand by our private conviction, not in self-conceit, 
but in simple loyalty to the truth and to our own 
souls. Consider, too, what is the origin of the 
public judgment. Evidently it is the combined 
private judgments of many men. If no man had a 
mind or judgment of his own, there would be no 
public judgment. In appealing to our private 
judgment against the public judgment, we are ap- 
pealing to the original, — against that which is de- 
rived from it. We are going back to the source of 
the public judgment. And we must stand by our 
conviction, because, whether mistaken or not, it is. 
our own, and we are responsible for it. We can- 
not delegate our responsibility to any agent. The 
commandment is Thou, not thy Church, or thy 
Bible, or thy Party, but Thou. 

And after we have done our best, we may yet be 
mistaken. We must remember our liability to 
error, and we must take the responsibility of 
possible error. Yet if we keep our minds open to 
discern the effect of our belief, we may, if in error 
soon perceive it, and right it. And if our eye were 



I36 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

single and our conviction faithful, our motive not 
the exalting of ourselves, but the prevailing of the 
truth, even finding ourselves wrong, after all, may 
have its consolation, and we may magnanimously 
rejoice, or at least with our humiliation mingle 
something of rejoicing, that the truth has prevailed 
even over us. 

In this faith that we are the children of God, and 
our consciences and minds directly related with 
his truth, there is unbounded inspiration and hope. 
Every faith has its inspiration after its own kind, 
according to the nature of its object and the in- 
tensity with which that object is grasped. If, then, 
we shut the soul within a human authority and 
hedge it round with biblical or ecclesiastical limits, 
we take away the inspiration of the soul's life in 
the same proportion. If the earthly authority 
which we set up be coextensive with the universal 
truth, then indeed there would be no limitation of 
faith or loss of inspiration ; but if the authority we 
set up be less, then there must follow this loss of 
faith. By as much as the authority is less than 
the truth, by so much is the life inspired by it less. 
This is not a mere danger and apprehension ; the 
injury is actual and open to our observation. Ob- 
serve the life of the Roman Catholic Church, and 
of other hard-shell churches. In certain directions, 
when their rule permits it, there is a highly devel- 
oped life, perhaps surpassing what we find else- 
where. But on those sides where the despotism 



CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 137 

presses, see the stifling of the soul, the persistent, 
zealous, fanatical, and cruel injury and maiming of 
our nature ; see the encroaching tyranny, overmas- 
tering one part after another, and crushing out its 
life! Not only is the object of the soul's faith 
lessened, when we set up a human authority in 
place of God's truth, but the soul itself grows 
smaller, grows used to subjection, until at last it 
becomes, we may say, naturally subject, and loses 
even the thought of its free manhood. And when 
that happens to a person, or people, or church, there 
is an end of worthy life, of original thought and 
action, an end of living prophecy and prayer, until 
some soul, growing among hidden ways to strength, 
bursts the bonds, and wakes the world again to the 
free consciousness of manhood. 

When any human authority exalts itself above 
the human conscience, it forgets the origin of all 
just human authority. When any church, or 
religious society of men, exalts itself above the 
conscience, it forgets that it is itself the offspring 
of that conscience, and that in quenching it it is 
quenching the sources of its own life. When the 
church of man shall humble herself to the simple 
truth, and recognize her human origin, and her 
human conditions, and her human duty, and, seek- 
ing not her own glory, but the truth of God and 
the good of man, shall abase herself to the level of 
man, we shall see a new church. 

We have been considering the nature and condi- 

18 



I3o CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

tions of Christian liberty, and some of the relations 
growing out of it. I have based it on the Christian 
faith that man is the child of God, and directly 
related with his truth. We have seen that all 
claims to an. infallible supremacy over the human 
conscience in any book, or institution, or person, 
are only various forms of human despotism, the 
setting of a portion of mankind over the rest, 
thereby denying to the rest their divine birthright. 
We have seen, too, that while this principle of 
freedom is in deadly conflict with any such des- 
potic claims, it is not antagonistic, but, on the 
contrary, sympathetic, with the gathered life of 
religious institutions, and with the public religious 
life ; that this gospel faith unites as well as frees 
us, — unites us with the life of all kindred souls, and 
unites us with all institutions, books, and persons, 
with a power proportionate to their truth. I have 
spoken of the narrowness of those who interpret 
this freedom only on its individual side ; of the 
unity which this faith gives, larger and deeper 
based in the human heart, than any despotic unity 
can be; of its recognizing the whole body of be- 
lievers as integral parts of the church, and enfran- 
chising all instead of exalting a part over the rest. 

I have considered the relations of our private 
judgment with the general judgment, the danger of 
arbitrarily exalting ourselves, and the danger of 
surrendering our souls, and finally I have pointed 
to the inspiration and promise of this faith. 



CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. I 39 

In affirming this liberty against any absolute, 
earthly authority, we do not break the tie which 
unites us with mankind. We change it from an 
outward domination to an inward fellowship. 
Neither do we give up our divine allegiance; 
rather, we establish it more deeply, resting it in the 
inner spirit. We establish it upon the new cove- 
nant, the law written upon the tables of our hearts. 

Jesus bids us, as the summit of our aspiration, 
be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect ; and 
he who carries in his heart the holy consciousness 
of God's spirit within him, while it will humble him 
to see himself in the light of such a faith, will yet 
meekly dare to follow this exalted hope, and will 
seek to grow into the divine fulness, — toward the 
full measure of divine grace. 

In this faith we stand, free by the spirit in us, 
one with our fellow-men in the union of the spirit, 
receiving from them help and strength in propor- 
tion to the truth which we recognize in them, and 
yielding them our reverence and faith for the truth 
with which they bless us, looking with them to the 
common source and end of all our life. 

And round this holy gospel I see forming a re- 
newed church, — free, enlightened, powerful. I 
see it gathering all the human faculties to its ser- 
vice, putting off its swaddling-bands and its con- 
fused entanglements, and waking to the conscious- 
ness of its strength, casting its young, prophetic 
glance over the round world. I see it in the future, 



140 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

rising in its mighty youth, overcoming one form of 
error after another — meek, gracious, and irresisti- 
ble, — winning nations to itself, and regenerating 
humanity. I see this holy gospel enduring through 
the ages until its work is accomplished, and the 
sons of men, filled with its inspiration, become 
indeed the sons of God, blameless and without 
rebuke. 



PEAYER. 



" They looked unto him, and were lightened." — Psalms 
xxxiv., 5. 

The unseen power which enfolds our life, which 
giveth us our breath and taketh it away again, is 
always present with us ; yet we are most distinctly 
conscious of its presence in the times of crisis, 
when some great sorrow, or joy, or overpowering 
experience comes to us. At such times we are, as 
it were, brought face to face with the divine power, 
and we recognize its nearness to us. The divine 
mystery enters into our life ; something comes to 
us which we had not prepared, nor thought of ; or 
our knowledge, and skill, and foresight are over- 
mastered, and our life, as it were, taken out of our 
hands, and mysteriously ordered. But this unseen 
power, though at such times more distinctly felt by 
our minds, is always with us. In that supreme 
presence we continually abide, and the right dispo- 
sition of our hearts in that supreme presence it is 
one of the great aims of religion to attain. 



142 PRAYER. 

In the world of mystery into which our deepest 
experience brings us, we are beyond exact observa- 
tion, beyond sight, in the midst of unseen realities, 
among which we must move by that within us 
which finds its native home in this unseen world, 
by those powers of the soul which are still with us 
when our sight fails us, the hope, the faith, the 
love which may abide with us and uphold us as 
long as our souls themselves abide. And to sus- 
tain us in this saving faith, to uphold us against 
the doubt and despair to which our natures are 
prone, and keep in us the healthful strength of the 
spirit, we need the help of prayer. 

" They looked unto him, and were lightened," 
says the Psalmist. Prayer is the looking unto him. 
It is the conscious recognition of the unseen power 
as responsive to our spirits, so that even in the 
world of mystery we are not alone. But even this 
power which enfolds us, which orders our lot by its 
supreme will, is related with us, is with us, and his 
heavens are not a blank, nor a wall echoing our 
voices, but the abiding place of one who can hear 
and answer us. By our faith we rest upon the 
deepest human experience — love, righteousness, 
and truth, — as upon realities. We look upon 
these things, not as freaks of nature, or the glim- 
mer on life's surface, but as realities, substantial 
and enduring, significant of the world which we do 
not see, and of the divine being. By the revela- 
tion in human hearts of love, of truth, of right, 



PRAYER. 143 

our faith is so illumined that its light penetrates 
into the divine mystery ; and in the unseen world 
we apprehend a reality corresponding to that deep- 
est experience of our life ; and in the Divine Being, 
though his fulness be beyond our thought and 
speech, we apprehend a nature responsive to what 
is best in us. There are some who quarrel with 
the expression, "The personal God," as if it implied 
a limitation of God's nature, or seemed to conform 
him to our human nature ; and doubtless the ex- 
pression is sometimes so misconceived; but I know 
no better expression than that, to signify our faith 
that the Divine Being is responsive to what is best 
in us, to our personal nature ; not that he is a being 
of simply human powers enlarged — far from us 
the thought, — but that in him our highest human 
nature finds its meaning ; that he is responsive to 
what is best in us, — our love, our truth, our grace, 
our inspiration. By this faith our hearts are not 
only upheld amid the mysteries of life, but they are 
uplifted ; there is a constant power leading us to 
better things, holding out to us new and higher 
possibilities. 

In that faith that the divine being is responsive 
to our inward, personal life lies the spirit of prayer, 
and by prayer and meditation the health of our 
souls is maintained. Prayer is the exercise and 
action of that faith, and by it the faith itself is kept 
alive and strengthened. 

That is a suggestive thought which I remember 



144 PRAYER. 

to have quoted here from Renan : " Perhaps it 
is well that an eternal veil should cover truths 
which have their reward only when they are the 
fruit of a pure heart." The things which are plain 
and palpable call for palpable and easy virtues ; the 
things which are obscure and hidden call for the 
finer and more inward virtues. Immediate and 
visible ends are reached by short-lived motives and 
expedient action, — the far-off ends, invisible to 
sight, and only apprehended by prophetic faith, call 
for a deeper inspiration, a holier patience, a de- 
voted faith. If the realities of Providence were not 
mysteries, but plain to our sight, and subject to 
our calculation ; if salvation could be bought for a 
specific price, either of certain acts, or labors, or 
sacrifices; or if the kingdom of heaven could be 
reached by any visible and unmistakable path, — 
then its attainment would seem to call for nothing 
higher in us than a kind of worldly prudence. And 
how many there are deluded by the thought that 
they can circumvent God, and by selfishness and 
fear can attain the divine blessing. But the fact 
that the divine realities are mysteries, and that we 
cannot reach them by the lower methods of selfish 
calculation, and exact observation and inference, 
this very fact tends to develop in us new powers 
with which to meet and reach these mysteries. 
And these powers in us which deal not with palpa- 
ble facts, but with the unseen and impalpable 
truth in which our souls live, these powers of the 



PRAYER. 145 

spirit which reach out to the supreme mysteries, 
and which meet our religious need, are the finest 
graces of our life ; hope, faith, aspiration, peace of 
heart, the love of God, the apprehensiveness of the 
divine truth, — these are the inward graces, by whose 
possession the soul dwells at home even in the 
midst of the infinite mystery, and experiences a 
blessing which even the certainty of any lesser joy 
cannot bring to it. 

But from this state of peace, and hope, and faith, 
the heart is prone to sink ; prone to be overcome 
by cares, and labors, and perplexities, and sins, 
and we need the help of prayer and meditation to 
keep up the healthful spirit in us. As to the forms 
of prayer, they must vary with our characters. It 
is here, I think, as it is with the forms of social 
and domestic life. It is well to have good forms, 
which express our meaning, and which have in 
them a power of development, so that the forms 
themselves lead us up and improve us; but the 
forms must vary according to our characters. We 
like our friends to have good manners, but we wish 
sincerity from them first of all, without which all 
forms are hollow. So in our divine relations, 
singleness of heart and simple sincerity of expres- 
sion alone are fit. Not that I would severely con- 
demn those who in their worship use a language or 
form apparently insincere, unless they be conscious 
of it; for, however single our hearts, our thought 
and speech is often obscure from the mystery of 



14^ PRAYER. 

our subject, and the symbol which we use to ex- 
press our meaning sometimes comes to have a dif- 
ferent meaning to us from its apparent meaning. 
I recognize the great difficulty here, and would not 
harshly condemn any forms of prayer as neces- 
sarily insincere ; for in no such easy way as that 
can we detect insincerity, which may lurk in what 
seems the most natural and simple expression ; but 
I would especially commend those whose forms of 
prayer are the natural expression of their character 
and faith. If we can pray naturally and simply, 
then is our prayer an organic part of us, helping 
the growth of our souls, and itself helped by that 
growth. 

And as to the spiritual conditions of prayer, 
though I have said that the spirit of prayer seems 
to me to lie in the faith that the divine being is re- 
sponsive to what is best in us, yet I would draw no 
such limit as final, nor say that no one can pray 
who has not this faith. I think this faith neces- 
sary for the deepest prayer, but who shall say 
where true prayer begins ? Wherever there is the 
uplifting of the heart, or the fixing of the mind 
upon high things, there is the beginning of prayer. 
There are many among us, in these days of positive 
fact and positive philosophy, who have not a con- 
scious faith in God as a personal being responsive 
to our hearts, who have little faith in religion or in 
the religious institutions, but who yet recognize in 
themselves and in the world the higher and the 



PRAYER. 147 

lower, the better and the worse. Can they pray ? 
And if so, what is their natural form of prayer ? 
They certainly can do that which is a kind of pray- 
ing; they can stay their minds upon what is best 
in their experience, and in the experience of the 
world; they can meditate upon what of truth, and 
beauty, and righteousness, and love, they have 
known and witnessed, and deepen its impression 
upon their hearts ; they can habituate themselves 
to these high and elevating thoughts, and every 
day recall them to their hearts, and dwell in their 
familiar neighborhood. This fruitful and sanctify- 
ing meditation is open to those who have no con- 
scious faith save in certain human excellences. 
There are some people, and those often of high and 
pure character, who question very much whether 
they have any right to pray, whether they have 
faith enough to pray; and we may rightly ask our- 
selves whether we ought to pray in certain ways ; 
but it seems to me that every one who is not 
utterly sceptical of man and God, any one who 
recognizes any beauty, or truth, or grace, in the 
world, can so far pray as to stay his mind upon 
that truth or grace, and habituate himself to it, and 
by daily meditation in it draw in its healthful air, 
and strengthen his soul with it. Meditation, silent 
dwelling on the truth, is a thing but little prized in 
these restless days; but by that meditation the 
truth penetrates the heart with its vitality and 
health. 



I48 PRAYER. 

And then there are those who hardly have a con- 
scious faith in God as the Father of our spirits, 
nor in the great objects of the world's hope, but 
who yet love this faith in others, who are drawn to 
the religious institutions, who are drawn to the 
church which gathers and associates the faith and 
aspiration of the world. Or they may be drawn 
toward some man who has a greater faith than 
theirs. It is said of Abraham, " He is a prophet ; 
he shall pray for thee." And the disciples asked 
of Jesus to teach them how to pray. Those who 
pray as others have taught them, because they have 
not themselves the clearness of thought, or the 
elevation of heart to pray in their own way, are 
wise as well as humble. By the help of their 
brethren they are supported, and inspired to good 
thoughts and actions. And even if we be our- 
selves capable of original prayer and worship, yet 
there are better than we are ; there have lived those 
who can guide us in our prayer. Of all our breth- 
ren of the human race we must here seek help, and 
learn from holy men how to dispose our hearts and 
thoughts toward God ; and as far as we are able to 
receive their truth, it will enter into us and inspire 
our prayer. And there is this advantage in using 
the prayers of holier men than we are, — that by 
using them we grow up to their meaning, We 
may not wholly understand these prayers at first, 
nor at last, even ; but if they be real, and we use 
them rightly, then their meaning will more and 



PRAYER. 149 

more unfold itself to us, so that the prayer itself 
will more and more teach us how to pray. And 
there is this other great advantage in using prayers 
sacred from the holiness of their author, and con- 
secrated by the usage of our fellow-men; that by 
the prayer itself we are associated with these our 
brethren ; that we approach the Father's presence 
in the society of our brethren, and are sustained 
by their faith. Our religious faith unites us not 
alone with God, but with man, and our prayer is 
not full unless it associate us with our race, and 
bind us up in community of purpose and faith with 
the church of God, and with mankind. 

To pray most fruitfully we need both the per- 
sonal form of prayer, — the simple expression of 
our own desire, and need, and penitence, and aspi- 
ration, — and the more perfect forms in which the 
holiest men have expressed their hearts, and which 
the conscience of mankind has consecrated. 

Stated seasons of prayer, and set forms of prayer, 
are liable to degenerate into formality. Yet if we 
have no habit of prayer, we are likely not to pray 
at all ; for we have habits in other things, and these 
habits grow upon us ; and if we do not have the 
habit of prayer and meditation, we shall probably 
find that our other habits will crowd out our prayer 
and meditation. Experience shows us that in civ- 
ilized life habits are natural and almost necessary. 
We habituate ourselves to regular meals, although 
we are not always hungry just at those times. If 



150 PRAYER. 

we want to learn anything, we must put some will 
as well as inclination into our study, and form some 
habit of study; so if 'we seek after righteousness, 
and the will of God, experience shows us the wis- 
dom of habituating ourselves to meditation and de- 
votion. We are more responsible for our habits 
than for our original natures ; for our habits are 
more the fruit of our own will and act. We should 
then guard against the exclusive influence of our 
other habits, and of the necessities and cares of 
life, by forming some habit of meditation or devo- 
tion in which we may at least consider our duty 
and our course of life, and recall our highest ideal, 
and in which if our faith go further we may seek 
the help of God, and the support of the Church to 
strengthen us. 

We have these two dangers : on the one hand of 
neglecting our devotion entirely, if we form no 
habit of devotion ; and on the other, of becoming 
formal in our worship, if we have the habit of devo- 
tion. But I think the danger of neglect greater, at 
least among us, than the danger of formalism. 
Yet the danger of formalism is great ; and if we 
are wise we shall not make our habit a fixed and 
set form, but rather an elastic habit, which can 
fit our varying states of mind; so that we may 
sometimes meditate in silence upon our duty and 
the truth, and sometimes use .the forms of prayer 
which the Saviour, or the Church, or holy men have 
given us, and sometimes pray out of our own 



PRAYER. I 5 I 

minds and with our own words. Thus we may 
regard the conditions of our human nature, and 
not strain our faith by a mechanical conformity, 
nor yet neglect to give it its daily nourishment. 

But the form and manner of our prayer is sec- 
ondary. However we may reach it, so only we fix 
our heart upon the best things in our experience, 
or upon the supreme objects of our faith, we shall 
then truly and fruitfully pray. We live in the 
midst of mystery ; our lot and life are in the hands 
of the. unseen, eternal Being, from whom our life 
has come. By dwelling in faith upon the divine 
mystery, there enter into our hearts those graces 
of hope and peace and aspiration and abiding love 
which keep us firm even in the midst of the mys- 
tery ; and our faith may lift our hearts to the appre- 
hension of the Divine Being, who is not alone the 
universal Power, but the heavenly Father, in whom 
our hearts find their meaning and their eternal 
peace ; the Being who is responsive to what is best 
in us, in whose keeping nothing of our life is lost, 
but its preciousness guarded and increased. Look- 
ing unto him, we are lightened. 



WOKLDLY AND UNWOKLDLY WISDOM. 



" For the children of this world are in their generation wiser 
than the children of light." — Luke xvi., 8. 

Such words as these help us to fill out our knowl- 
edge of Christ's character, and to deepen our un- 
derstanding of his gospel. It is sometimes thought 
that Jesus believed and preached his gospel out of 
his inexperience, and that his gospel is good relig- 
ion for inexperienced people, but that it will not 
bear the rub of the world ; that it is a good Sunday 
religion, but that somehow it neglects the actual 
conditions of life, does not recognize the difficulties 
of life, — in fact, does not work very well in the 
world. 

But there is much in the gospels which corrects 
this view of Christianity, and which shows to us 
that far from having the shallowness of inexperi- 
ence, it has in it the depth and strength of experi- 
ence. The gospel of Jesus, the good tidings of the 
heavenly Father and the heavenly kingdom, are 
not simply the bright thoughts of a fresh, pure 



WORLDLY AND UNWORLDLY WISDOM. 1 53 

heart ignorant of evil. They have in them, indeed, 
the morning brightness of the pure and stainless 
soul ; but they are yet tempered in the dark waters 
of experience. It is not only toward the end of 
Christ's life, when the ignorance and malice of 
men began to close around him, and to threaten 
him and his work ; it is not only then that Jesus 
shows his understanding of the temporal conditions 
of righteousness, and of the obstacles which his 
word must meet ; but in the very beginning and 
throughout the record of his life there is the deep 
undertone of experience. The sense of inward 
need, the mourning of the spirit, meekness, hunger 
and thirst for righteousness, mercy, pureness, peace 
of heart, blessed are these, says Jesus ; and follow- 
ing these comes the blessing upon those who are 
persecuted for righteousness' sake, and after that 
again the blessing upon those who are reviled and 
spoken against for Christ's sake. That he knew 
would be sure to come. And when he tells them 
to love their fellow-men, he does not forget that 
part of our fellow-men whom it is hard to love, — 
our enemies, those who curse us and hate us and 
despitefully use us and persecute us. His gospel 
is no easy optimism, calling upon us to be meek 
and pure and peaceful, lovers of righteousness, be- 
cause it is easy to be so ; but to be so although it 
be hard, although it bring persecution and distress 
and loss. He does not tell us to love our fellow- 
men because they are so good to us and kind to us, 



154 WORLDLY AND UNWORLDLY WISDOM. 

for many of them are not thus ; we are to love 
them in spite of their being evil to us, of their hat- 
ing, injuring, slandering, cursing us; not because 
it is easy, because it is godlike to love them. 
What a depth of heart which would see and feel 
the iniquity around him, and yet love those unjust 
ones who hated him! 

And when Christ, in his parable of the sower, 
tells us of the effect of his word upon men's hearts, 
how true it is to human experience. His word he 
knows is not going to reform everybody immedi- 
ately. It will fall by the wayside, — on the mind 
dark with ignorance or sin, which will not under- 
stand it, and the wicked one will catch it away ; it 
will fall in stony places, — on the shallow heart which 
has no root, and dureth for a while ; which catches 
at the beauty and blessing of the word, but when 
persecution ariseth, or any trouble comes from lov- 
ing the gospel, it is offended, it cannot understand 
those last beatitudes, nor see any blessedness in 
persecution or trouble ; it will fall among thorns,- — 
upon hearts filled with worldly cares, and anxieties 
about their property and fortune, and anxious both 
for to-morrow and to-day, careless only about their 
own souls and their highest good ; and only when 
the word has fallen in these unfruitful places will 
it fall in the good ground, into receptive hearts 
where it will take root and find freedom and sun- 
shine, and be fruitful in all the graces and powers 
of the Christian character. So clearly did Jesus 



WORLDLY AND UNWORLDLY WISDOM. 1 55 

see the real state of human hearts, — their weak- 
ness and their indifference. 

And when, turning from the effect of his word 
upon the private personal heart, he speaks of its 
larger effect upon society, there is the same clear 
knowledge of the temporal conditions of his truth. 
This glad news of the kingdom, which is to be 
heaven upon earth, — this gospel of peace, he sees 
contains the seed of discord and revolution. There 
is war in it. The bitterest divisions will grow out 
of it. Even the sweet harmony of home will be 
broken up by it, and the closest and most intimate 
relations will suffer from it ; " a man's foes shall be 
they of his own household." So it must be with 
every new truth. Happy if the whole household 
learn it together ; for where one part receives it, 
and the other not, there must be lack of sympathy, 
and it may be estrangement and bitter division. 

And so examples might be multiplied of the 
depth of tone, throughout the words of Jesus, with- 
out which his words would lose much of their sav- 
ing power ; for how could his gospel save from sin, 
if it did not recognize the fact of sin ? 

And again, in the words to which I ask your 
thoughts to-day, we see an example of Jesus' wis- 
dom and clearness of sight. " The children of this 
world are in their generation wiser than the chil- 
dren of light." Worldliness is, for the time being, 
surer of worldly success than unworldliness is. 
They who from worldly motives seek worldly ends 



I56 WORLDLY AND UNWORLDLY WISDOM. 

have their reward in worldly success. Just as the 
hypocrites — the men who act religion for the ap- 
plause of men — have their reward in the applause 
of men, and gain fame and admiration and sweet 
praise for their prayers and charity ; so the worldly- 
wise have their reward and gain success in propor- 
tion to their skill and prudence. And just as the 
man whose prayer and alms are only before men, 
and not to God, just as he can only receive the ap- 
plause of men for his reward, because his motive is 
limited to that, and his heart only opened to receive 
that, and not turned to God to receive the divine 
reward and blessing, — so is the worldly-wise man 
successful only " in his generation " ; his success is 
limited by the lowness of his motive and the short- 
ness of his aim. He wants immediate success, and 
he works for it. He is prudent and careful in seek- 
ing it, and the success comes and endures for a 
while. 

The man who devotes himself entirely to worldly 
ends is more apt to succeed in his immediate pur- 
poses than the man who mixes higher motives with 
his lower ends ; for the moment he adds these 
higher motives, and tries not only to effect his im- 
mediate object, but to keep true to some principle 
of honesty, or human kindness, or public spirit, or 
piety, he makes his undertaking much larger and 
more difficult and more full of risks. I do not 
mean to say that even worldly success does not re- 
quire certain principles. Worldly success has its 



WORLDLY AND UNWORLDLY WISDOM. 1 57 

laws. A certain amount of honesty and upright- 
ness is essential to it, and certain virtues of charac- 
ter and mind are essential to it ; but I say it is a 
much simpler work for a man to aim merely at a 
certain worldly object, and reach it, conforming to 
the rule of right enough to save his respectability ; 
it is much easier for him to reach his object thus, 
than if he try also to fulfil a high purpose, or act 
upon larger motives than those of his self-interest. 
And that seems to be one of the meanings of these 
words : that the children of this world — worldly 
people without any thought or purpose beyond 
present things — get on more smoothly in the world, 
make fewer mistakes, conform more carefully to 
circumstances and temporal conditions, and in gen- 
eral conduct themselves and their affairs more 
wisely, after their fashion, than the " children of 
light," who have the vision of higher things, who 
have heavenly desires, and who seek unworldly 
ends. It simplifies a man's life very much to have 
him desire nothing but some immediate object, and 
to care nothing how he attain it. But in propor- 
tion as we add to this simple ambition higher de- 
sires and aspirations, our success grows the more 
difficult, and its attainment the more distant, and 
our religious desires connect us with such infinite 
objects, that their perfect attainment is impossible 
upon the earth. And since our religious desires 
and aims are complicated with earthly and human 
conditions, and our life includes all our temporal 



I58 WORLDLY AND UNWORLDLY WISDOM. 

needs, as well as the objects of our faith, the far- 
ther our religious desires reach the more danger 
will there be of failure somewhere. To live so that 
we shall be faithful alike in the little things and in 
the great things, will call for more and more wis- 
dom upon our part. 

And then the unworldly things are so beautiful 
in themselves, and the love of them so natural and 
satisfying, that those who have that love are apt to 
think that is enough, and not to feel the need of 
wisdom. To love " not wisely but too well " is one 
of the special faults of religious and enthusiastic 
people. Hard facts take out something from the 
sweetness of their feeling, make them uncomforta- 
ble ; they are suspicious of criticism and quiet judg- 
ment. The ends we aim at in religion are so fair 
in themselves that we are apt to forget the means 
by which they must be reached. Thus we have 
the desire of personal goodness, the hunger and 
thirst for righteousness, and that desire is itself so 
good and high and worthy, and gives us such a 
consciousness of the soul within us, that we are 
apt to forget that this end is one of the most diffi- 
cult of all things to attain ; we are apt to forget the 
discipline through which we must attain to right- 
eousness ; and the words of a teacher speaking out 
of the moral experience of the race, and telling the 
discipline of virtue and the means to righteousness, 
fall coldly and heavily upon our aspiration. Yet 
this wisdom is needed, if we would endure in our 



WORLDLY AND UNWORLDLY WISDOM. 1 59 

endeavor. The very aspiration itself will grow 
weak and faint unless it be fed on truth, and deal 
with reality. 

Or we have a desire to benefit our fellow-men. 
We are warmed, perhaps, with the charitable desire 
that everybody should be fed and clad and comfort- 
able ; and in that very desire there is something so 
generous, that the desire itself seems to be suffi- 
cient. We are apt to forget that this is an end 
most difficult to reach, and the means to that end 
requires the greatest wisdom. The end itself is so 
fair and generous that we are impatient of the 
means ; we are impatient of anybody who questions 
or discusses ; for questioning the means suggests 
questioning the end. 

And it is the same with many of our higher de- 
sires, that the objects of our faith and desire are so 
good in themselves that they seem to justify them- 
selves, and their simple presence in our hearts to 
be enough, while in reality they are ends which 
must be reached by means, by wisdom and knowl- 
edge and judgment and faithfulness and patience ; 
they are ends most difficult to attain, in which we 
are liable to mistake and failure ; in which we may 
oppose and defeat, by our own folly, the very end 
we aim at. 

Thus those who love the light, and seek the 
higher things, need to learn the lesson of wisdom 
from those who are wise in worldly things ; for by 
as much as the things they desire are greater than 



l60 WORLDLY AND UNWORLDLY WISDOM. 

the worldly things, by so much do they need greater 
wisdom. 

And let us not be too quick to count ourselves 
children of light, because we have not the success 
which some others have. We sometimes fail be- 
cause we are too good to succeed, — because suc- 
cess would be unworthy, and our souls will not 
stoop to it ; but we often fail because we are not 
good enough, — because we lack wisdom, or virtue, 
or strength enough for success. That is a very 
dangerous habit of pride which consoles itself with 
failure by thinking success to be beneath it. If we 
lose because we are true to our principles, to our 
love and faith, then, indeed, we have the high con- 
solation of the faithful heart, uplifted though cast 
down, rejoicing in God and in his truth, whatever 
fortune may bring him. But it is not the failure 
itself which brings this, but the faithfulness inside 
the failure ; and it is not every failure which has 
this consolation. Yet if the faithfulness be there, 
there is this consolation. 

The ends we aim at in religion are high, and to 
reach them we must conform to the reality, and by 
wisdom and faithfulness gradually move to their 
attainment ; and this attainment is difficult in pro- 
portion to the greatness of the ends, and we are 
sure to err sometimes in seeking it, and may make 
many mistakes, and never seem much nearer to 
success than when we started, and the disappoint- 
ment of our own hearts will find a mocking echo 



WORLDLY AND UNWORLDLY WISDOM. IOI 

in many a cold, or careless, or envious spirit round 
us ; yet is that word true which Paul gives us, and 
which is responsive to the promises of Christ, 
that " all things work together for good to those 
who love God." To the faithful heart there can 
come no final loss. Disappointment, failure, mis- 
take may befall the faithful man ; but still he has 
this joy within himself, the sunshine from above, 
the divine light shining in his heart. If we keep 
steadfast to high objects, and hold fast our faith, 
and if we endeavor purely to fulfil it, there is in 
the very quality of our soul and action something 
which will endure through all. If then we err, we 
shall blame our lack of wisdom and seek to remedy 
it ; but if we were faithful to our little light, and 
dared to seek our object in obscurity, we shall not 
be without the deep reward which God gives to 
every faithful motion of our hearts, the peace of 
God, the comfort of the Spirit, which no outward 
righteousness can buy, which no price can buy, 
but which is the divine reward of faithfulness. 
Through our failure and success, through our gain 
and loss, or praise and blame, or glory and disgrace, 
the great objects of the world's hope and aspira- 
tion, the truth toward which they reach, remain ; 
and if we can but stay our hearts on that, we shall 
have the consolation which comes from it. Let us 
then learn the lesson of those who are wise in the 
things of this world, yet not be content with their 
wisdom. Let us do our best to add wisdom to our 

21 



1 62 WORLDLY AND UNWORLDLY WISDOM. 

faith, and seek the true means to our high ends ; 
yet let us so love the higher truth as to prefer 
failure in seeking it to success without it. 

" Oh, if we draw a circle premature, 

Heedless of far gain, 
Greedy for quick return of profit, sure 

Bad is our bargain ! 
Was it not great ? Did not he throw on God 

(He loves the burthen), 
God's task to make the heavenly period 

Perfect the earthen ? . . . 
That low man seeks a little thing to do, 

Sees it and does it ! 
This high man with a great thing to pursue, 

Dies ere he knows it ! . . . 
That has the world here — should he need the next, 

Let the world mind him ! 
This throws himself on God, and unperplext, 

Seeking, shall find him. . . . 
Lofty designs must close in like effects, 

Loftily lying, 
Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects, 

Living and dying." 



FAITH IN GOD. 



"I am not alone, because the Father is with me." — John 
xvl, 32. 

Jesus is " a prophet of the soul." The deep things 
of the soul, which in most of us lie obscure and 
silent, he utters ; and as he utters them we recog- 
nize them as ours also. What in us is faintly felt, 
a vague longing, a dim, uncertain thought, a waver- 
ing hope, he utters with clear consciousness and 
full conviction, and the power of his faith warms 
ours into life, and gives it strength and firmness. 
Often he speaks as with the voice of human nature 
itself, as though in him mankind itself were speak- 
ing, not its current thoughts and wishes, but its 
deepest desires and aspirations. Thus is he our 
helper, his higher nature acting everywhere upon 
human hearts, and everywhere developing our in- 
ward powers, strengthening our minds to clearness, 
and our hearts to faith. Thus is he the prophet of 
our souls, divining our own hearts for us, showing 
us ourselves, interpreting our most hidden nature, 



164 FAITH IN GOD. 

and inspiring us with his own deep and universal 
faith. 

And this utterance which I quote to-day has in 
it this universal quality, a meaning for every human 
heart : "lam not alone, because the Father is with 
me." In this we see expressed the abiding faith of 
Jesus, that the Father was always with him, and with 
this faith he sought to inspire those around him. 
In this faith he met all the experience of life, — the 
common every-day cares and necessities, the temp- 
tations of selfish ambition, the disappointments of 
life, the misunderstanding of kindred and friends, 
the hardness of men's hearts, the malice and ha- 
tred of his enemies, and death itself. And through 
that life, through all its outward change, there 
shines this fulness of faith in the near presence 
and the constant love of the Father. And if in 
the agony of the cross, the despairing cry of the 
psalmist, " My God, my God, why hast thou for- 
saken me ? " rose to his lips, it was but the parting 
cry of his mortal nature. And it may be that 
these words were not his, but that, rising to men's 
minds as they thought of his death, they became 
associated with him, and attributed to him. But 
whether or not he, too, had times of wavering, and 
passing moments of despair, the abiding life of his 
heart had in it the full consciousness of the Fa- 
ther's presence with him. And in that faith he 
viewed alike the great and the little things of life ; 
and to that faith he called all those around him, to 



FAITH IN GOD. 165 

sustain them also in their little cares, and in their 
sharper trials. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus 
looks over our human life, and considers our expe- 
rience, our common needs of daily bread and cloth- 
ing, and the temptations to worldly care which 
grow out of these needs, and the temptation to be 
content with a narrow, shallow, and formal right- 
eousness ; abstaining, indeed, from murder, adul- 
tery, perjury, extreme revenge, and unnatural mal- 
ice, yet indulging in hatred, lust, careless and 
profane speech, hardness, and ill-will ; and he con- 
siders the temptations to hypocrisy, and again the 
danger and the likelihood of opposition and perse- 
cution. He looks over our life, and, warning us of 
its dangers, he tells us how to meet them, and gives 
us the remedy for them. And this he does, we 
may say, by shedding the presence of the Father 
into our whole life. When, for instance, he warns 
us not to be anxious about our food and raiment, 
he says, " For your heavenly Father knoweth that 
ye have need of all these things." Not that we 
should not seek them ; for we must seek them ; we 
have need of them ; but he who made the need has 
provided for its satisfaction also. Trust, then, to 
the Father, that your labor and prayer for daily 
bread will, by his Providence, supply them. And 
when he tells us to rise above the common practice 
of men, and love even our enemies, he says, " that 
ye may be the children of your Father which is 
in heaven : " and in other places he thus appeals 



1 66 FAITH IN GOD. 

directly to God's presence with us as a motive to 
us. And the Sermon on the Mount is pervaded by 
this consciousness of the Father's presence with 
us ; and so are the other words of Jesus. And ob- 
serve he does not simply say my Father ; it is, "your 
heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need," and 
so on; that "ye may be the children of your Fa- 
ther," and so on. The near help and presence of 
God is general to all who will receive it ; the gospel 
of his love is sent to all of us. 

We are not alone, because the Father is with us. 
The power by which we came into this outward 
world, by which we live our mortal life, by which 
at last we leave it, is a real power related with us, — 
related with our inmost selves, inspiring us, guid- 
ing us, loving us, present with us alike when we 
enter this world, and while we remain in it, and 
when we leave it. And by faith in this present 
power we feel that we are not alone ; we are in- 
spired to goodness and patience and devotion ; we 
are sustained under trial, and comforted in afflic- 
tion, and upheld in sickness and peril. By this 
faith we join our partial life with the eternal life. 
Where our life touches the unseen, it does not find 
a blank, but it finds the unseen power. This faith 
connects us and our mortal weakness and change- 
ableness with the mighty God, the eternal provi- 
dence ; it binds our destiny to him. 

This faith Jesus had in full and abundant meas- 
ure. It was in him an abiding inspiration and con- 



FAITH IN GOD. 167 

solation. It gave to his nature and his words and 
actions that divine quality by which he is an en- 
during and universal blessing to mankind ; and this 
faith is the deepest inspiration and the deepest 
comfort that our hearts know. In our life it inspires 
us to truth and steadfastness and unselfishness and 
patience and courage and joy and hope and peace, — 
to all the good fruits of the Spirit. And in the pres- 
ence of death it is still with us ; it teaches us that 
God is present still with those who pass from the 
earth, and that in him they live. 

That we are in the hands of an almighty Power, 
against which our wilfulness cannot avail, which 
marks out our mortal life and ends it, whether we 
will or no, is too plain an experience for any one to 
deny ; but what that power is, is the great question 
which holds our minds, as it has held the minds of 
all the world since first the world awoke to con- 
scious thought. What is that power which presides 
over our birth and death, and over all our life, how- 
ever much in exulting health and prosperity we 
may forget it ? What is that power ? We may 
call it chance ; but that is only the expression of per- 
plexity. Chance is no key to the secret of the 
world ; it rather expresses the perplexed confusion 
of our minds, and our doubt of there being any 
key. We may think it the orderly movement of 
unconscious force, here and there developing into 
consciousness, — conscious in man (for no one can 
deny that man is a conscious being) ; but as a whole 



ID5 FAITH IN GOD. 

unconscious ; that is to say, our human conscious- 
ness has no divine counterpart. The universal be- 
ing is, indeed, active, and out of its ceaseless activ- 
ity man is produced, and develops to intelligence 
and love and holiness ; but when he turns to the 
power whence he springs, there is no intelligence 
there, no consciousness, no love, no holiness. Man 
turns to his eternal source, and there, according to 
this view, he finds no counterpart to that which 
makes him man ; no divine counterpart to his intel- 
ligence, his love, his holiness. I waive the question 
here which some raise, whether it be strictly right to 
apply human terms — intelligence, love, holiness, — 
to the divine and ineffable Being. The terms are 
incidental. The question is, Is there in the univer- 
sal being the divine counterpart of the highest part 
of man ? Is there in the unseen power the coun- 
terpart of that which is seen and manifest in the 
best men and women in the world ? Is there in 
God the counterpart of that which is manifest in 
Jesus Christ ? If we conceive the unseen power 
to be unconscious force, even if orderly in its ac- 
tion, we still leave human life as much an enigma 
as ever ; we interpret the divine by the lower side 
of nature. If God be unconscious ordered force, 
then what is man ? However much this view of 
the divine Being may obtain credit with those ex- 
clusively interested in physical phenomena, or in 
an age when physical phenomena are specially 
studied, I cannot feel its force as philosophy any 



FAITH IN GOD. 1 69 

more than I can recognize its adequacy as religion. 
If the world were a great unconscious mass, dis- 
solving and combining and recombining and whirl- 
ing and circling in endless, yet orderly, motion, and 
then the thought were uttered, — an unconscious 
orderly force, — I should see the fitness between the 
thought and the thing. But in our human world, 
with this human history behind us, and our human 
life around us and in us, to say the universal power 
is an unconscious orderly force, does not fit the 
fact, — does not unlock the secret of the world. It 
leaves man and human life out of the question. 
And it is just that, it is just man and human life 
which is the question, — the heart of the question. 
But when the thought comes to us, that in the di- 
vine Being, in the unseen power which presides 
over our birth and death, and in whose hands is all 
our life ; in the unseen power there is the divine 
counterpart of human life also, as well as of the 
life of outward nature ; in the unseen power there 
is that which, in a divine and unimaginable way, 
corresponds to what is highest in our human na- 
ture; nor is there any height which man can reach 
of truth, or holiness, or love, but in unspeakable 
perfection abides in the divine nature, — then we 
speak the name of God, and our hearts bow down 
in worship. Then, if one may speak of such a 
mystery, we seem to have found the secret of our 
human life. The highest part of man, toward which 
all nature painfully develops, becomes full of mean- 



170 FAITH IN GOD. 

ing to us. We interpret the divine Being, not by 
the lower forms of existence, but by the highest 
life we know. And while there remain many mys- 
teries and perplexities, yet this faith in God as 
having in himself, in unspeakable perfection, the 
counterpart and fulfilment of what is best in us, as 
related with us, not only in the ruling of our des- 
tiny, but in our inward life, — this belief in God 
seems to me both the word that best unlocks the 
secret of our life and the faith that best inspires 
and consoles us. 

Thus thinking, the life of the world becomes to 
us no longer meaningless ; the life of the human 
soul is no longer isolated. Every heart feels the 
central bond. Into human life there comes the 
uniting power, binding us all to God and one an- 
other. The prayer and effort, the love, the hope, 
the faith of human souls, are not in vain. They have 
their fulfilment in the united life, — in the life with 
God and with his children which our faith promises. 

We are not alone, because the Father is with us. 
Such is the faith of Jesus, and that faith is the 
deepest inspiration and the deepest comfort that 
our hearts know. By it we unite our life with the 
life of the Father; we unite the life of all our 
brethren with his. And as he is deeper and higher 
than life, or death, or anything created, we have in 
him an abiding refuge and an abiding hope. And 
we believe that those who pass from us are still 
with him, and are safe with him. 



FAITH IN GOD. I/I 

And this faith enters our hearts by its own 
power, and by our sympathy with those who hold 
it. And it grows strong within us by our dwelling 
upon its truth, and by our practising upon it, and 
experiencing its power, and by our seeing it present 
in the hearts of others, inspiring and comforting 
them. The faith of those around us, of those in 
distant places or times ; the faith of the whole holy 
Church of God, of the universal company, who in 
every age and all places have turned to him for 
strength and comfort ; the faith of the Saviour, — 
all may strengthen and support us. We are not 
alone, because the brethren, too, are with us, and 
the Father with us all. 

And may God grant to all of us this faith of 
Jesus, and the strength and comfort and peace 
which spring from it. May he grant that this faith 
may gradually grow up within us, and that by con- 
tinuance in it we may know its blessing. 

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose 
mind is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in 
thee. 

" Trust ye in the Lord forever : for in the Lord 
Jehovah is everlasting strength." 



THE BIBLE. 



"For whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written 
for our learning." — Romans xv., 4. 

By the help of books we may become almost lit- 
erally " citizens of the world." We may carry in 
our minds the experience of whole nations and 
races, and dispose our minds and guide our actions 
by the life of men far off from us, of different race 
and speech and customs ; and the extent to which 
we literally do this few of us realize. It seems like 
poetry, and imaginative, to speak of such influ- 
ences. But it is the commonest matter of fact, 
even in the lives of the most practical men, to be 
directly influenced by some ancient Hebrew or 
Greek, or some other far-off man. By reading, 
then, we bring the distant world near to us. The 
ancient and the foreign nations become our teach- 
ers. We learn not only from our own minds and 
the minds of our parents, but the minds of the 
world speak to us. How to use the gathered wis- 
dom of the nations and the ages is a great ques- 



THE BIBLE. 1 73 

tion for us. And it is an immediate practical 
question for all teachers, and for all institutions 
concerned with teaching. 

The point on which this question touches us 
most nearly is about the Hebrew and early Chris- 
tian Scriptures, — the Old and New Testaments. 
How to look upon these writings in the truest way ; 
how to be most vitally and fruitfully related with 
them, so that they will help us most, is a question 
contantly presenting itself. It seems to me that 
our public are to a great extent out of natural con- 
nection with the Bible ; and that the relation of 
many minds with the Bible is an artificial one, and 
less fruitful than it would be if it were natural and 
real. To remedy this we need a truer view of the 
Bible, so that we may not be hindered from appre- 
ciating it by our perplexity about it. Only in this 
way, it seems to me, can the Bible take its rightful 
place in our hearts and minds. And so it seems 
to me it is our duty, not only to admit the criticism 
of the Bible, which seems to us to be true, but to 
teach it and extend it. 

A large part at least of our public seem to me, 
as I have just said, out of natural connection with 
the Bible, — not knowing what to think of it; and 
in consequence of this perplexity either using it 
artificially, or else using it very little. The con- 
tents of the Bible are so ingrained into our New 
England life, — into our literature, speech, man- 
ners, and traditions, that the results of laying the 



174 THE BIBLE. 

Bible on the shelf are not immediately perceptible. 
Thousands of us may entirely give up the reading 
of the Bible without any very perceptible public 
result ; because our general life is so pervaded 
with the contents of the Bible, our public thought 
has so much of the Bible in it, that we should re- 
ceive a good deal of it indirectly, even if we should 
leave off reading it ourselves. Just as thousands 
of people, who keep apart from the church, share 
all the public benefits of the church, though they 
share none of its burdens, but live to that extent 
upon their neighbors. But if the disuse of the 
Bible spread, so as to become general, the result 
will be in the highest degree disastrous, and a great 
spiritual help will be lost to us. There are, no 
doubt, many reasons for the decrease of Bible-read- 
ing among us, — one, no doubt, the increase of other 
reading. The great expansion of reading — I do 
not say of literature, but of reading — which this 
generation has witnessed, the enormous increase 
and spread of books, has very much affected our 
reading customs, and affected them in a variety of 
ways. One of the effects has been to diminish the 
reading of the Bible. Our fathers, we are told, 
read their Bibles more than we. But they had 
comparatively little else to read, — so that it was as 
much their circumstances as their virtue which 
caused them to read it so much more. Now, every 
child has quantities of books offered him to read, — 
books at home and in his neighbors' homes, — books 



THE BIBLE. 175 

in the Sunday-school library, and in all other sorts 
of libraries, and many magazines and newspapers. 
Along with his Bible there is placed before him a 
great quantity and great variety of other books. 
And just as at tables where, along with the whole- 
some food, there are regularly spread all sorts of 
dainties, nearly all children, and perhaps most 
grown people, will take too many of the dainties, 
and in course of time lose their wholesome appe- 
tite and diminish their health; so it seems to me 
the present careless and greedy reading, by old and 
young, of all sorts of books and journals, many 
of them with no merit but their newness, seems 
to have seriously injured the intellectual vigor of 
multitudes among us. On the whole, the benefit 
of this increase of reading may outweigh the evils. 
But the benefits would be greatly increased if 
the public used more self-control and wisdom in 
its reading. At any rate, people now-a-days have 
much more choice of reading than they used to 
have, and this affects their reading of the Bible, 
and has diminished it. 

And, no doubt, there are many other reasons why 
the Bible is less read among us than it used to be. 
All our life hangs together ; all sorts of influences 
affect it. The general course and movement of 
men's minds affects all their specific actions. And 
to explain why it is that the Bible stands in its 
present relation to our minds, would be to explain 
the whole life of our age. 



176 • THE BIBLE. 

But this fact seems plain, that many minds 
among us are much perplexed about the Bible. 
And this perplexity hinders our using it. Some of 
us hardly know what to make of it, even if we read 
it out of regard to pious custom, or because we 
think its reading a religious exercise and discipline. 
Some who hardly know what to make of it, do, in- 
deed, continue reading it thus, and gather wisdom 
from it, in spite of their perplexity. For whatever 
there may be obscure in the Bible, there is plenty 
of it that is plain and helpful, whatever theory we 
hold about it, or whether we hold no theory at all. 
But others who are perplexed about it give up read- 
ing it. They feel that they do not take a very 
genuine interest in it. There is much in it they do 
not understand at all, much that troubles them, 
some things which shock and disturb them. Read- 
ing it rather raises a multitude of questions to their 
minds, than gives them comfort and support. So 
they give up reading it. 

The remedy for this evil seems to lie in seeking 
the reality about the Bible; in learning what it 
really is in itself, and how it is naturally related 
with us. If we learn what the Bible really is, and 
come into our natural and true relation with it, 
many perplexities and obscurities will still remain, — 
for much in the Bible is necessarily obscure from 
its antiquity and strangeness ; but our method 
will be right, and we shall be in the way of receiv- 
ing freely and without hindrance its teaching and 



THE BIBLE. 177 

help. Whereas, if our general view of the Bible 
be artificial, and our relation with it not natural - or 
real, then, in addition to all the inherent obscurities 
of the Bible, our method with regard to it will be 
wrong, and its teaching for us will be warped and 
twisted. 

It seems to me that the natural and true way of 
regarding the books of the Bible, both of the Old 
and New Testaments, is to look at them in their 
place in history, as expressing the life, thought, and 
faith of those who wrote them. And we should 
read them as we read other books, chiefly for their 
contents, — with regard for the opinions of others 
respecting them, but chiefly for their contents. 
These books have been canonized not only by the 
Roman Catholic Church, but by the Protestant 
Church also ; and they are canonized in the hearts 
of Christendom. And this canonization is with 
many actual idolatry, — the setting up of a book, a 
human thing, in the place of God. Observe how 
this happens. First a man, Isaiah, or Jeremiah, 
or Paul, writes a book. Its depth and power inter- 
est its readers. They prize it, and tell others of 
it. The book is multiplied, and becomes a public 
treasure. Where people meet for religious pur- 
poses, the book is read as the best word for their 
souls. In synagogue, or church, it is read for the 
power of its contents. The ecclesiastical organiza- 
tion grows. At last a body of ecclesiastical officers 
meets ; and, considering what is good for the socie- 

23 



178 THE BIBLE. 

ties under their charge, and for the world, they pass 
the dogma or resolution that such and such books 
are sacred, — or, it may be, that they are the abso- 
lute word of God. Then the next generation 
brought up on this dogma read the books differ- 
ently, — not freely, as they would read the words of 
a living preacher, but always with this dogma that 
they are infallible in their minds. This goes on 
more and more, and the relation of men's minds 
with these canonized books grows more and more 
strained and artificial. The former order is re- 
versed. Originally the book was loved and revered, 
and then canonized because it was loved and re- 
vered. But later generations find the book already 
canonized, and they are called upon to reverence it 
because it is canonized. And here comes a very 
interesting question. When has the book most 
power ? When it is read chiefly because it is loved, 
and because people are interested in it, and find it 
good for them to read it, or when it is read largely 
because it is canonized, as a pious custom and dis- 
cipline ? That is a very interesting question, be- 
cause many people assume that to read the books 
of the Bible, as we would the works of living men, 
is to take away a great deal of their influence. 
And it does vastly lower their apparent place, in- 
stead of saying these books are the infallible utter- 
ance of the divine Spirit, to say these books are 
the writings of certain Hebrews, which the expe- 
rience of the Western World has found to be of all 



THE BIBLE. 179 

books most helpful in religion. What a vast appar- 
ent descent from the infallible word of God to the 
writings of certain men, even if they have been 
found best suited of all books to the religious needs 
of half the world ! But is the difference as great 
as it appears ? Does the real power of a book in- 
crease in proportion as it becomes canonized and 
outwardly revered ? On this question that other 
question bears, — whether Isaiah's or Paul's writings 
had more power when they were living, and the 
writings read naturally and freely as the writings 
of living men, or later when they were regarded as 
the infallible oracles of God ? Of course they had 
a wider power later than at first, because it took 
time for them simply to spread ; and later they 
were known to more men than at first. But, aside 
from the number of those whom they reached, was 
the power of these books less, at first when they 
were freely read as the works of living men, than 
afterwards when they were read as canonized and 
infallible books ? I think not. Were the New 
Testament writings less powerful over men's hearts 
in those first days, when they took their chance 
with other books, and held men's hearts by their 
contents, and had not been consecrated by council, 
or canonized as sacred, — were the gospels and 
epistles less powerful in those first days, when they 
were freely read, than afterwards when councils 
had declared them sacred, and finally deified them ? 
I think not. Then, in those first free days they 



l80 THE BIBLE. 

moved the world by their own native power, — they 
needed no formal consecration. But that consecra- 
tion came. The books were collected, stamped 
with ecclesiastical sanction, one wrapper of dogma 
after another was added ; the simple words of the 
evangelists and apostles were clothed more and 
more with ecclesiastical notions, until at last they 
resembled in men's eyes their original character as 
little as the Pope of Rome resembled Peter. 

Whatever title or outward authority men give to 
the books, they remain the same. That is, whether 
I think Paul's epistles the infallible word of God, 
or the utterance of a certain Jew, the writings 
themselves remain the same. And it is by no 
means true that I can increase their power by in- 
creasing their name and title. To think a book 
infallible when it is not so is a positive injury both 
to the book and to myself ; and on a large scale 
this error works disastrous effects. It hinders 
men from understanding what the book contains, 
and what the author means, and so of feeling his 
influence. The way to feel the influence of a book 
is to view it as it is. The way to make its influ- 
ence felt is to teach the true view of it. To think 
a book infallible when it is not so is to bind a fic- 
tion to it, to which we must continually bend its real 
meaning, — is to put our mind in such a position 
that it cannot easily receive its meaning. To call 
a book infallible when it is not so is to hinder 
other people's receiving it. While, therefore, there 



THE BIBLE. l8l 

is no doubt that the doctrine of infallibility gives 
an apparently greater authority to the books of the 
Bible, it is certainly very doubtful whether it gives 
them any more real influence, because before the 
books were canonized they seem to have wrought 
their most powerful effects. And there is no doubt 
that a mistaken or artificial view of a book hinders 
our receiving its meaning or right effect. And 
those views which remove the Bible, or the writers 
of it from human conditions seem to me artificial. 

As I have said before, a book is a human thing, 
and any inspiration there is in it must be in the 
man first ; and while we believe men to be inspired, 
we believe them to be inspired under human condi- 
tions. In order to read the books of the Bible nat- 
urally, it seems to me we must read them like other 
books. We must remember that their authors were 
men like ourselves, and read them simply as we 
read other books, — not so much anxious to make 
the contents fit our notions as to find out what 
the author means. When we read a book with 
preconceived notions about it, we are cramped in 
our appreciation of it; only when we read it freely, 
with the desire to catch the author's meaning, — to 
feel the movement and power of his genius, his 
thought, his faith, — only then can we fairly receive 
the author's influence. Many people, I find, are 
much more anxious about their view of the Bible 
than about the Bible itself. But the Bible will 
remain what it is whatever view we take of it ; only 



1 82 THE BIBLE. 

if we take a wrong view we shall not receive its 
real message, because our eyes will be blinded to 
it. We should try, as much as possible, to form 
our view of the Bible on the Bible itself, — read it 
freely, just as we read other books, so that its real 
character will impress itself upon us, and then con- 
sider what it is ; not first make up our minds what 
it is, and then always try to make it fit our precon- 
ception. 

There is no doubt that the change of view with 
regard to the Bible will work a change in the use 
of it, nor is it easy to say what that change will be. 
By the method which seems to me the true one of 
treating the Bible, the Bible will be brought into 
more natural connection with our minds, and its 
contents will work their natural effect unhindered 
by artificial conceptions. Holding this view, we 
associate with the Biblical writers on the same free 
terms with which we associate with other writers 
and other men. We ask them what their word 
and message is, and receive its influence and force. 
That this is a great change from the views of the 
majority of Christendom is evident; that it will 
affect the use of the Bible in the public mind and 
in public worship, and in the private mind and 
worship, is evident ; but how is not so evident. Nor 
is it at all evident that it will lessen the influence 
of the Bible. It may increase it. In many cases 
under my own observation it has increased it; but 
what will be the large and general effect it is hard 
to say. 



THE BIBLE. 1 83 

There is one objection, however, which many 
people feel and express, — to read the Bible like 
any other book is to degrade it. If the Bible isn't 
different from other books, why use it in church, 
and for other religious purposes ? But because I 
read the Bible like other books, as giving me the 
thought and life of a certain nation and its great 
teachers, because I read it thus freely, I do not 
put it on a level with other books. The notion 
that other books except the Bible are on a level is 
a great mistake. Books vary by their contents 
from each other, and the Bible varies by its con- 
tents from other books ; and the different books of 
the Bible vary by their contents from each other. 
To read the Bible freely as we do other books will 
not make the Bible like other books, nor shall we 
use it as we do other books, because its contents 
are different, and its meaning different, and conse- 
quently its natural use is different. Just as origi- 
nally the books of the Bible found their natural 
place in men's minds, and came to be used in 
public worship, and were afterwards canonized, so 
now the free reading of the Bible will give it its 
natural place among other books, and in the private 
and the public mind and use. The power of the 
Bible rests ultimately upon the nature of its con- 
tents, the depth to which it moves our nature, its 
fitness for enlightening and elevating and sustain- 
ing the heart. Its position as the sacred Script- 
ures did not give it this power ; but this power in 



184 THE BIBLE. 

it gave it its position. The free and natural treat- 
ment of the Bible opens its meaning and its power, 
and opens our minds to receive it. A friend of 
mine said to me not long ago, " Last summer I dis- 
covered the Psalms." He had heard them read all 
his life, and had often read them himself; but one 
day when he was on a vacation, as he read them 
leisurely, not for discipline, nor for any practical 
purpose, but as we read other books — for interest, 
and to know their contents, — as he read thus 
leisurely, with an unincumbered mind, what he had 
indeed often read before, the power and mighty 
breath which fill them took possession of him as 
though they were a new word to him, and he had 
new-discovered them. So will the Bible freely 
read be a discovery to many who have hitherto 
read it only in a constrained way. So on a large 
scale it may be a new discovery to Christendom, 
and inspire the Christian world with a new impulse 
and life. 



HOPE. 



" Rejoicing in hope." — Romans xil, 12. 

That is a beautiful conception in the book of 
Genesis which interprets the rainbow as a token of 
divine promise, God setting his bow in the heavens 
that we might have hope in him and in his good- 
ness. Nor does the interpretation fail with time. 
The rainbow still blooms in the sky, and still re- 
joices our eyes, and cheers the devout heart with 
hope in him who is the author of such beauty. 
After the fearful beauty of the storm, the wind, the 
thunder, and the blazing lightning, comes the gen- 
tle, radiant beauty of the bow athwart the clouds. 
The war of the elements closes in peace, and the 
heart of the beholder changes from awe and sus- 
pense to quiet cheerfulness and pleasure. Children 
of Nature, we feel her influences. The things of 
Nature affect us after their kind. They awaken in 
us thoughts and emotions corresponding to them- 
selves. But, once awakened, these thoughts and 
emotions in us go beyond the objects which awak- 

24 



1 86 HOPE. 

ened them. They become part of our souls, part 
of our enduring life. The " skyey influences " pass 
into our very nature, and there become humanized 
and a part of our character. The hope which the 
beauty and the bounty of the world awakens and 
nurtures in us is not confined to the circumstances 
which awaken it, but abides in us among all cir- 
cumstances, — becomes part of our life itself. 

It is one of the distinctive marks of the Christ- 
ian faith that it has hope in it. Christianity, we 
say, grew upon' the stock of Israel ; and it not only 
grew, but bloomed there. " The law was given by 
Moses ; but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." 
And that indefinable grace which was in Christ, 
and which is in the Christian faith, is not only the 
"beauty of holiness," and the power of faith, but 
it has in it also the freshness and the joy of hope. 
The gospels and epistles beam with fresh and hope- 
ful life. 

It is a common thing to hear hope spoken of as 
an illusion, — part of the over-health of youth; par- 
donable, indeed, in that season of our life, but 
hardly to be reckoned among the mature and 
stronger virtues. There is, indeed, a beauty about 
this disposition which naturally distinguishes it 
from homelier virtues, and places it among the 
graces of character. And yet we err if we think 
its grace is a mark of weakness. Experience does 
indeed bear heavy upon our hopefulness. Disap- 
pointments, checks, limitations, failures, all the sad 



HOPE. 187 

experience of life, weigh upon our hopefulness, and 
yet none the less clearly does experience teach us 
the need of hope, — the strength and power of hope. 
Thus, on the one hand, experience lays burdens on 
our hope ; and on the other, experience develops 
our hope, raises it, fixes it, confirms it. 

That our experience weighs upon our hopeful- 
ness we know, perhaps, too well. Take any per- 
son starting upon an enterprise, and even though 
he be well on in life, yet if the object before him 
be to him fresh and untried, it will impart its fresh- 
ness to him. Take any enterprise, outward or in- 
ward, the attainment of some outward end, or the 
attainment of righteousness, there is a freshness 
and vividness in the first sight of the object, as it 
stands before us in its own attractiveness, which 
fills the heart with hope and cheer. Take a man, 
for instance, morally awakened to a full conscious- 
ness of his own soul, — when it comes over him that 
he himself is a reality, and that in his own charac- 
ter there lies a mighty work to be performed, or to 
be neglected, or perverted. The sight of some 
good man or woman, the thought of some departed 
saint, the thought of the holy Jesus, it may be, 
awakens him to himself. The thought comes over 
him, " I, too, may be a good man ; I, too, may join 
the company of the good, — the children of truth 
and of uprightness, who uphold and bless mankind 
and glorify their Father." And he pictures himself 
a good man. His hope springs with one bound to 



155 HOPE. 

that end, and he rejoices as though he were already 
of the kingdom of heaven. But inquire of him 
later, and we shall find a more chastened and hum- 
bled mind in him. It may be, perhaps, that we 
shall find he has lost his hope. The sudden spring- 
ing up of his hope lacked root, and withered as 
suddenly as it had grown. Or it may be we shall 
find a faint and occasional glimmer of it left ; or it 
may be, as I have said, that we shall find it still 
strong and enduring, but chastened and humbled. 
And all alike would tell us that when they resolved 
to be good men, and live good lives, and attain to a 
worthy character, they little knew how hard it was 
to be good, and how continual a succession of diffi- 
culties their resolve would have to meet. One hard 
reality after another had opposed itself to their 
hope, and experience had weighed heavy upon it. 
And it is the same with all our hopes. 

And yet while experience burdens our hopeful- 
ness, it yet demonstrates the need of hopefulness. 
The poor man who hoped to be among the good, 
but whom one temptation after another has assailed 
and overcome, until at last he accepts his weakness 
as final, and no longer struggles against sin, when 
at last his hope fails him loses a great power. * The 
only way he can be saved, as far as we can see, is 
by starting that hope again within him. Without 
that motion of his own soul toward honesty and 
uprightness, we may help him outwardly, or we 
may forcibly restrain him from crime, but we can- 



HOPE. 189 

not reform him. But if we can once wake in him 
the hope of goodness, there is some chance for 
him, and he may struggle forward to a worthy 
character. And it seems to me that Jesus had and 
has, in a wonderful degree, this mysterious power 
of awakening hope in the hearts of the weak and 
sinful. The grace of his nature touches the cold 
and hardened soul to life and hope. And in the 
awakened hope lies the possibility of good. With- 
out hope the soul lies inert and motionless. 

And the experience of the uncertainty of life 
demonstrates the need of hope. We live in a 
world of which we are able to see and know a part 
distinctly, but in which there is much more that 
we cannot know. Especially with regard to the 
future is all our life uncertain. We cannot possi- 
bly foresee what our future is to be, — whether sick- 
ness or health, life or death, poverty or riches, pros- 
perity or misfortune, and all around us are in the 
like case. There is no constancy in the circum- 
stances of our lot. But he who has in himself a 
hopeful disposition is so far guarded against the 
inconstancy of circumstances. When a man is 
disappointed in any hope, we are disposed to con- 
demn his hopefulness ; but it is his lack of wisdom 
which we should condemn, if his hope were foolish. 
It is his fate which we should condemn if he were 
disappointed in spite of prudence. Hopefulness 
cannot make a man wise. And an unwise man 
will be foolishly hopeful, as he will be foolish in 



190 HOPE. 

every other way. But his hopefulness is his virtue ; 
it is his foolishness which is in fault. The man of 
hopeful disposition has in his hopefulness a posi- 
tive strength with which to meet circumstances. 
It is easy to strike a man when he is down, and the 
despondent man is always down, and every misfor- 
tune strikes him with full force. But the hopeful 
man is always up, and his hope must first be over- 
come before misfortune can fairly strike him. His 
hope is a positive resistance to evil, whose power 
cannot be measured. The only force which we 
have with which to meet the necessities of life and 
overcome its evils and fulfil its purposes, is the 
force of our own souls, strengthened by knowledge, 
and by the unseen power. Hope is a part of this 
inward strength. By it we are at home in the 
midst of uncertainty. By it our life is guided and 
upheld. It is the light forerunner of faith ; and 
where all around is dim and clouded, and the heart 
left only to its own direction and its own life, hope 
buoys it up. 

The conditions of uncertainty are constant in 
our life and in every part of it ; and so hopefulness 
is a strength which we all constantly need ; for the 
heart is a power in itself, and where all else is un- 
certain, the disposition of the heart gives guidance 
and direction to our life. Our hopefulness gives 
us just so much more power in the midst of uncer- 
tainty. And he who lacks this strength of hope 
is at the mercy, not only of every evil, but of every 
chance of evil and fear of evil. 



HOPE. 191 

Thus there is need of hopefulness in proportion 
to the uncertainty of our life ; but that same uncer- 
tainty makes it difficult for us to keep up our hope. 
Just as there is need of health in proportion to the 
strain upon our strength ; but that same strain 
makes the preservation of health difficult. Yet it 
helps us to remember that hopefulness is health 
and strength, not weakness as some are tempted to 
think. 

And the need of this spirit of hopefulness is 
nowhere greater than in our religious life. In our 
religious life we are surrounded with mystery. Our 
observation shows us a part of the reality, a part 
we infer from what we know; and beyond our 
observation and our exact thought there opens to 
us the mysterious world, — invisible, unimaginable, 
unspeakable ; yet that world, though invisible, is re- 
lated with us. We touch its hither side, though we 
cannot reach it with our observation, nor bind it with 
necessary logic ; and as we stand upon its shore, we 
are not wholly strangers to it. The unseen myste- 
ries awaken in us certain dispositions of the soul, 
thoughts, and emotions, whose presence sustains us 
in the midst of the mysteries which awaken them. 
These religious thoughts and dispositions long 
dwelling in us reach a certain steadiness which we 
call our faith. Habitual dwelling on the unseen 
world, on the inward life and need of the soul, 
association with holy teachers, sympathy with other 
minds, form in us a certain framework of thoughts 



192 HOPE. 

and dispositions by which we interpret the unseen 
realities, and live before God. But there are times 
when this framework of our faith is rudely shaken ; 
when some part of it which we had thought strong 
seems to give way, and confusion and perplexity 
shake our minds. At such times there is nothing 
left for us but hope, until our minds recover from 
their perplexity. In the midst of confusion and 
doubt of mind, we stay our souls upon the hope 
that what is good in our thought of the unseen 
world is also true and real. However difficult it 
may be for us to unite our knowledge with our 
faith, however far apart the facts of our observa- 
tion and the objects of our faith may be, and how- 
ever weak the framework of thought which we once 
trusted may at such times seem to us, yet even at 
such times we may still hold the hope in the unseen 
realities apart from all proof, evidence, argument, 
or probability, or any process of reasoning ; we may 
still hold the hope that God and immortality and 
the eternal right are realities, because they are 
good. And I would give more for the simple, 
unsupported hope of some souls, than I would for 
the most assured and fortified confidence of others. 
And while it is only at critical times, and compara- 
tively rare occasions, that our minds are thus 
thrown into utter confusion, yet a certain amount 
of confusion and perplexity is one of the constant 
conditions of our inward life. As I have said of 
other parts of our life, so of this part also; some 



HOPE. 193 

uncertainty is one of its constant conditions, and 
this uncertainty we must meet with hopefulness. 
So that that character which lacks this disposition 
of hopefulness is weak upon a constantly exposed 
side of life. The uncertainties of life, its dangers and 
apprehensions, strike full upon it; but the hopeful 
man has in his disposition a defence against these 
uncertainties, nor do they reach him until they 
become certainties. And when with hopefulness 
there is joined prudence and though tfulness, we 
have a double strength. I have known persons of 
this steadfast character whom men trusted for their 
wisdom, and loved for their hopefulness ; who stood 
as pillars of strength for all their friends to hold to, 
bravely upright amid all the change of circum- 
stances, and amid all inward difficulties and per- 
plexities. The power of a hopeful character cannot 
be measured, nor its influence calculated. We 
touch there upon the vital essence of the soul, the 
springing life within us, whose possibility no one 
can foresee or limit. 

And in our hopefulness lies the promise of 
achievement. No great thing was ever done with- 
out some hope to start it. There is much in our 
life that we do because we must, — we cannot help it ; 
but that part of our life which we love, our actions 
large or small which we rejoice in, — these have 
hope in them, and to this part of our life our hope 
gives grace as well as movement. The philosopher 
Philo says, " The beginning of all participation in 

25 



1 94 HOPE. 

good things is hope;" and in another place, "Nature 
has placed hope at the gates to be a sort of door- 
keeper to the royal virtues within, which no one 
may approach who has not previously paid homage 
to hope. Therefore the law-givers and the laws in 
every State on earth labor with great diligence to 
fill the souls of free men with good hopes ; but he 
who, without recommendation, and without being 
enjoined to be so, is, nevertheless, hopeful,, has 
acquired this virtue by an unwritten, self-taught 
law, which nature has implanted in him." The 
children of hope are the children of promise also, 
and we look always with fresh interest on him who 
still keeps his hopefulness, as though we still 
expected something from him, for we see in him 
the living springs of power. But if that hopefulness 
fails or passes away, our expectancy passes with it. 
The children of hope are prophets of future 
achievement. Far beyond the range of calculation 
and deliberate prudence, their hope discerns its 
object, and they move toward it, opening the way 
for the rest to follow. 



" Hope evermore and believe, O man, for e'en as thy 
thought is 
So are the things that thou seest, e'en as thy hope and 
belief. 
Cowardly art thou and timid? they rise to provoke thee 
against them. 
Hast thou courage ? enough, see them exulting to yield. 



HOPE. 195 

Yea, the rough rock, the dull earth, the wild sea's furying 
waters, 
(Violent say'st thou and hard, mighty thou think'st to 
destroy), 
All with ineffable longing are waiting their Invader, 

All with one varying voice call to him, Come and subdue ; 
Still for their Conqueror call, and but for the joy of being 
conquered, 
(Rapture they will not forego,) dare to resist and rebel ; 
Still when resisting and raging, in soft undervoice, say 
unto him, 
Fear not, retire not, O man ; hope evermore and believe. 
Go from the east to the west, as the sun and the stars 
direct thee ; 
Go with the girdle of man, go and encompass the earth, 
Not for the gain of the gold, for the getting, the hoarding, 
the having, 
But for the joy of the deed, but for the Duty to do ; 
Go with the spiritual life, the higher volition and action, 
With the great girdle of God, go to encompass the earth. 

" Go : say not in thy heart, And what then were it accom- 
plished, 
Were the wild impulse allayed, what were the use or the 
good? 
Go : when the impulse is stilled, and when the deed is 
accomplished, 
What thou hast done, and shalt do, shall be declared to 
thee then. 
Go with the sun and the stars, and yet evermore in thy 
spirit 
Say to thyself, It is good ; yet is there better than it. 
This that I see is not all, and this that I do is but little ; 
Nevertheless it is good, though there is better than it." 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proces 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2006 

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